Your Next Obsession—To Kill a Kingdom
A dark YA fantasy with something even better than gore. Descriptive gore.
Lira just wants to protect her cousin. Elian just wants to save humanity. And I just want them together.
Written by Alexandra Christo, this twisted retelling of The Little Mermaid will grasp your heart immediately, emphasis on the heart part. Because, this siren princess has, let’s see… seventeen of them buried in her bedroom. Lucky you. I didn’t even get a warning.
Here’s Lira, a not-so-normal girl. With the ruthless Sea Queen for a mother, she’s feared as the Princes’ Bane. Why? Because all her hearts were ripped and torn from a prince’s flesh.
Backtracking a little, sirens live in the kingdom of Keto, trancing and killing sailors. They’re different from mermaids who “have stretched blue husks and limbs in the place of hair, with a jawlessness that lets their mouths stretch to the size of small boats and swallow sharks whole” (Christo 1). Sirens are the far more beautiful and superior species.
But, you see, Lira made a mistake. And now she’s turned into a human. Eugh, humans. I know. She must hunt down Midaasan crown prince Elian by solstice, who happens to be notorious as a siren-killer.
It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. The characters, the plot. With such intricate worldbuilding and scenery, I actually finished the book in one sitting. The storyline reminds me of Heartless while its dialogue of Fable. The gut-wrenching descriptions made me want to gasp and choke at the same time. The heart she stole “explodes into a gruesome mass of blood and flesh. Tiny particles float like ocean lint. Some dissolve. Others fall like feathers to the ocean bed. Shots plunge through [Lira’s] chest, slamming into [her] like whirlpools as the heart’s magic is taken from [her]. The jolts are so strong that [Lira’s] fins catch on a nearby seashell and rip” (Christo 28).
Lira just wants to protect her cousin. Elian just wants to save humanity. And I just want them together.
It is so time. Read… To Kill a Kingdom.
