I’m a big fan of portal fantasy, in which a person from our world visits a fantasy/magical world, and I recently read a really fun take on the subgenre.

First, I apparently have to give a disclaimer, since I got a review copy of the book. But I didn’t get it from the publisher. A few weeks ago, I was walking home from church, and not far from my house I came across a couple of boxes set out on the sidewalk with a sign saying “Free.” The boxes were full of books, mostly fantasy review copies, and this book was in there. I did manage to restrain myself and only got about four books, in part because I was walking and had to carry them the rest of the way, which involves a hill, and in part because I didn’t want to be greedy. The fun thing about this is that it seems that the boxes hadn’t been out long, as they were still full. There had been a brunch after church, and then they asked for help with the dishes, so I stayed to help. That meant I was more than an hour later than normal, and the boxes wouldn’t have been out yet if I hadn’t stayed to help, so I guess I was rewarded for having helped with the dishes.

The book in question is This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews. A woman from our world wakes up in the world of one of her favorite fantasy series (think Game of Thrones — it’s grimdark fantasy and the series remains unfinished), with no idea how she got there. But she’s not just in the world of the books. She appears to be in the story of the books, near the beginning of the first book. She has absolutely nothing to start with, but she has a huge advantage in this world. She knows what will happen, when, and where, and she knows the innermost thoughts, history, and deepest secrets for a number of the major players in the kingdom. She sets out to capitalize on this knowledge to move up in the world and get some kind of security, but as she gets to know the people there, she can’t bear the thought of letting all the bad things she knows are coming happen to these people, so she puts her knowledge to use to try to intervene. But the more she changes, the less accurate her knowledge will be. And there are characters whose head she never got into in the books because they weren’t POV characters, so there are secrets she isn’t in on.

This is a book for everyone who’s read or watched something and wanted to shout at the characters to do or not do something, as our heroine has the chance to jump into that world and do so. I had a ton of fun reading this book, though it got intense enough at times that I had to put the book down for a moment, or I couldn’t read it right before bedtime. The characters are interesting and endearing, and though the fantasy world is clearly inspired by things like Game of Thrones, it ends up being unique — it’s close enough that we can understand the heroine’s relationship to the story and get a sense of the situation she’s in, but as the story progresses it shapes up to be its own thing. It’s very satisfying to have someone go into that kind of world and point out how messed up it is and how it needs to be fixed. And given that the heroine has long brown hair, is an Army brat, and lives in Austin (and I get the impression she went to the University of Texas), it’s very easy for me to identify with her.

There is an epilogue that’s a huge cliffhanger, so if that bothers you, stop reading before the epilogue until the next book is ready for publication. Given the level of hype this book is getting, I think a sequel is pretty much a given. I’d been hearing about it even before I found an advance copy on the sidewalk.

And, for once, I managed to read an advance copy before the book came out, though I didn’t finish it until a few days after the publication date. I had an advance copy of A Game of Thrones months before publication, and it took me nearly a decade to actually read it (I started it before the publication date but noped out after a couple of chapters).

Now to read the rest of the books I picked up. There were several that I’d heard of and was planning to read, so it was a real joy to just find them. I should probably try to meet whoever lives in that house because we seem to have similar reading taste, though I’m afraid this person may be moving because there’s been other stuff like bookcases set out with “Free” signs. At least, I think it’s the same house. That stretch of houses is the Victorian version of a suburban development, with several in a row that are more or less the same, and I’m not sure which was the house with the books.