Review: To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

34499221 TITLE: To Kill A Kingdom

AUTHOR: Alexandra Christo

PUBLICATION DATE: March 6th, 2018

GENRE: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?

my review

I had seen quite a few reviews for this book, so going into it I had pretty high expectations. I love books that center around mythology, and especially mermaids/sirens. To Kill A Kingdom completely lived up to the hype! I loved it SO much.

The main reason I loved it: Lira. She’s one of the best characters I’ve read this year. It’s hard to say that because this year has been chock-full of amazing female characters. But something about Lira is even better than most of them. When we meet her in the beginning we see how ruthless she has been made. She rips out a prince’s heart without a second thought, and appears to enjoy it. Perhaps a bit too much. But as the story goes on we learn that she doesn’t necessarily like having to be a savage murderer. There was something extremely beautiful about watching Lira’s story line and progression. She grew so much and it was definitely one of the best villain to hero stories I’ve seen.

I also completely adored Elian. How can you not fall a little bit in love with the prince who’s family wants him to step up and be king, but his heart seems to belong to a ship and the sea? I also love when books are diverse and I can’t remember reading a fantasy story where the royal family was anything other than white. This book has heavy references to a lot of different mythology, but Elian’s family are said to be descendants of King Midas. His palace is shaped like a gold pyramid and he is said to bleed gold.

Another thing I really loved is that there were a lot of female characters. So often in fantasy there’s only a token female and the rest are guys. This book seems to do a pretty good job of balancing out the two, if not having a couple more women then men. Which is totally okay in my book.

I will die defending the enemy to lovers trope and that’s exactly what this book is. And it does it SO well. Elian and Lira’s banter is everything I want. There’s one part toward the end of the book that was so beautiful that I was almost in tears. That doesn’t happen very often.

Read this book! You won’t regret it at all!!

I want to take a second to say a special thanks to Amanda for sending this book to me as part of the ‘bookish wish’ movement on twitter!! I can’t thank you enough!

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