My Five Word TL:DR Review: Brilliant

I really loved TKWNKM, it made a great impression immediately and I just fell into the story and fell a little in love with the characters. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to fall down a similar rabbit hole to Maggie – I’m just too big a wuss for that endeavour, not to mention I do read some grimdark and I really wouldn’t want to fall into one of those (even though I love reading them) – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As the story begins we meet Maggie, naked and confused at first (much like myself – confused that is (not naked)) it seems that she has awoken in the kingdom of Rellas – a fictional setting and in fact a place well known to Maggic as it is the setting from her favourite fictional series. How this has happened has not been explained and tbh I didn’t worry too much about this. Basically, Maggic doesn’t know how it happened, and, seeing as how we learn everything from Maggic, there’s no realistic way that we could know – until she does. Now, Maggic has read her favourite series so many times that she has a good grasp of the world, characters and politics. She comes up with a plan to try and remain safe for the first night and see what happens from there. She has no clothes, no money and no friends – but, she does have some currency, she has a knowledge of what takes place in Rellas and this makes her a very unique and unusual commodity.

I’m actually not going to delve into the plot. I’m a little later that I wanted to be posting this review and as I’m late to the party I feel there are already plenty of reviews that go into some depth. Also, I always worry about giving things away or falling into spoiler territory.

What I can say is that this is something of a chunkster, epic fantasy with plenty of characters and plot points. There is some great world building, a few twists and even a number of critters.

So, I mentioned that this is quite a chunky story – but it doesn’t feel like it. I literally was hooked and was disappointed whenever I set the book aside. When the storytelling is this good a book doesn’t feel long – it actually feels too short if anything.

I really liked the characters. Maggic is a great MC to follow. She’s something of a softie, truth be told, but she also understands that while she’s living in this world, she needs to take realistic steps. I really liked this idea. More often than not the realities of a situation are overlooked or swept aside, like they’re not necessary – but I really enjoy the way Maggic keeps things real. She also has a great knowledge of the kingdom and puts this to immediate use. Maggie has soon come to the conclusion that a catastrophic event from the books is looming and she has decided to try and change things – not least of all because she wants to stay alive – although, so far she appears to be unable to die, well, no, she can die – but lets just stay it doesn’t remain permanent – it doesn’t make the experience of dying any less painful for her though!

Anyhow, rambling aside, it seems Maggie needs to work very hard to try and change the events in the book from unfolding as originally written, and some of her earlier attempts at interference barely scratch the surface. It’s not going to be easy to change the fate of Rellas and it’s main characters, and Maggie finds herself forming a number of very close attachments that she is particularly keen to protect. And, because of the difficulties that Maggic soon discovers and the resistance to her attempts to change the course of events there are quite a number of new diversions as Maggie finds herself going from Plan A, to B to C, etc. Luckily, she thinks on her feet, she’s quick and intelligent and has a great store of knowledge, she’s also capable of making a few educated guesses and on top of that she has a good sense of humour. And, of course, she’s a modern woman thrown into a historical fantasy situation so for once I had no grumbles about irritants like the use of modern phrases or such.

Maggie not only finds herself with a found family, one that she soon realises she wants to defend and keep alive, but there is also a budding romance looming. And, I cannot deny that I loved this aspect to the story. It’s written so well, the dialogue, the tension the slow build – it’s really good.

If you haven’t gathered already this was a great read for me but I’m going to stop my gushing now before I become any more incoherent. In a nutshell, great storytelling, fantastic sense of place, found family, critters, a fictional grimdark world that actually feels kind of cosy now that Maggie is living there – could grimcosy be a thing? Yes, there are some despicable characters and some horrible things happen but there’s nothing gratuitous.

A book that I fell into (do you see what I did there?) I loved it. Okay, I didn’t love the cliffhanger ending but such is life. I now need to exercise a little patience until book 2 is released and in the meantime I could seriously do with a reread.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

My rating 5 of 5 wonderful stars