Husband-and-wife writing team “Ilona Andrews” have been writing romantic fantasy and epic fantasy long before the term “romantasy” was born. Known for series like Kate Daniels, Innkeeper Chronicles, and Hidden Legacy, they have been hitting the bestseller list since 2007.
In the couple’s latest epic fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, main character Maggie is obsessed with the fictional Kair Toren, the world of a dark fantasy series she’s been re-reading for years. One day, she wakes up inside the living, breathing Kair Toren. For some reason, she cannot die—but that doesn’t mean she can’t feel pain. Maggie embarks on a journey to help her favorite characters from falling prey to the fate that’s laid out for them in the pages she’s read so many times. But it’s not as easy as she thinks.
Melissa Bendixen: The premise of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me may seem like a dream come true for many listeners! Have you ever wanted to go live in one of your stories? Would you go to Kair Toren if you could?
Ilona Andrews: That would depend on if we could resurrect like Maggie. On second thought, it might be better if we were impervious to pain and damage. Kair Toren is not a safe place for ordinary people, and we are very ordinary.
Our best bet for the world to travel to would probably be the Innkeeper series. The first and the most important creed of the Innkeepers is that the safety of their guests is their first priority. If they can handle intergalactic tyrants, temperamental chefs, and a clan of religiously fanatical assassins, keeping us safe shouldn’t pose much of a challenge.
Main character Maggie takes the term “plot armor” to a new level, which makes it a very fun listen. How did you decide to approach the stakes of the story since our main character cannot die?
Oh, but there are so many things that are worse than dying. Being buried alive and dying repeatedly from the lack of oxygen as you try to claw your way out. Being thrown into the sea, drowning, coming to, and drowning again, while trying hopelessly to swim to some kind of shore when you are not sure where the shore is. Being set on fire by an Archmage, who might want to know if your resurrection powers can outlast an eternal flame. In the second book, Kaiden, one of the children Maggie rescued, is worried about her. She reminds him that she cannot die, and he replies, “But you can suffer.”
While it is true that Maggie returns to life, that only makes the stakes higher. It’s not just about survival. It’s also about avoiding the fate worse than death while trying to shift the course of the kingdom, because while she can resurrect, people important to her have only one life.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is a kind of isekai fantasy, which is a Japanese word that means “from another world.” Which parts of isekai did you want to include, and how did you diverge from a traditional isekai?
Isekai is a wide, vibrant genre that is very fun to work with. While all isekai, by definition, involves being transported from one place to another, things diverge from there.
As Maggie mentions, a lot of isekai stories are reincarnation adventures, where an ordinary person from our world dies, usually because of an illness, overwork, or being hit by a vehicle. The truck accident occurs so often in the genre that fans have given the protagonist-murdering truck a name: truck-kun. The earliest instances of this trope are probably Astro Boy (manga) and Magical Princess Minky Momo (anime.)
A lot of times protagonists find themselves in someone else’s body, which presents its own challenges. Imagine waking up in the body of a criminal sentenced to death and chained in some dungeon cell, for example, or waking up as a baby but still having all of your adult memories and cognitive abilities.
Another common trope avoids the death and reincarnation altogether and instead relies on the protagonist being summoned to the fantasy world. Usually, there is a prophecy that states that a hero from another world will appear in a time of need, and once in a while everyone agrees that time of need is clearly here, so a ritual is performed that summons the protagonist, who usually gains magical powers through this process. A good example of this is The Saint’s Power Is Omnipotent (light novel and anime.)
"The best thing about writing fantasy—any genre fiction, but especially fantasy—is the ability to give the reader a break from their daily life."
We didn’t go with any of those tropes for a couple of reasons. Although Maggie leads a very ordinary life by the standards of our world, she doesn’t quite fit into our reality. Starting early in childhood, our lives tend to follow a certain course: elementary school, middle, high school, college or some kind of skill training, then a job. Maggie cleared that series of hurdles, but when she reached a point where she had to decide what to do with her life without the guardrails of parental expectations, she stalled.
There must be a reason behind her obsession with Kair Toren. Killing her didn’t feel right. She doesn’t regret her life. There was no need to end it. Throwing her into the body of some character didn’t seem to be a good fit either. Nobody summoned her. She simply appeared. In a way, Maggie is returning to the place she is supposed to be, and she enters it as herself, in her own body, without the shortcut of incredible magical powers. Yes, she can’t die and she has a couple of perks, but for the most part her main power is in knowing the secrets of the world and its people and all of the scheming.
Kristen Sieh is the narrator for This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. What made her the perfect fit to voice Maggie’s story?
Kristen is so incredibly talented. Her delivery, her voices, her understanding of the main character, everything is just such a good fit. We listened to her audition and there was no doubt—she is Maggie.
You have been writing romantic fantasy and epic fantasy for many years now. What do you love most about it, and what do you think about the current romantasy boom?
The best thing about writing fantasy—any genre fiction, but especially fantasy—is the ability to give the reader a break from their daily life. All of us need to unplug once in a while because life can be harsh, and like Maggie, sometimes we need to live in someone else’s head for a bit.
We are hardwired to experience strong emotions, but most of us also live relatively safe lives. Books allow us to love and hate with a passion, to despair, to hope, to triumph, and then they safely deposit us back in our reality, on a comfy couch with some delicious tea or coffee. To be able to take the reader on that journey—and hopefully leave them mentally and emotionally refreshed—is almost too much fun.
As far as the romantasy boom, we enjoy it. People are reading, and anything that gets us to read is fantastic.
