My favorite book of 2018 so far! To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

To Kill a Kingdom
by Alexandra Christo

Macmillan USA
Publication Date: March 6, 2018

From Goodreads:

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?

HUGE thanks to Raincoast Books and Macmillan USA for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. And to be completely honest, this was one of three books I was provided for winter releases. The Kill a Kingdom was my third choice out of the three, but the one I enjoyed the most!

Right off the bat, from the first chapter—the first page—I dug this book. Sirens were already pretty unique. You don’t see them very often, and when you do, they’re usually somewhat nameless, faceless bad-guy fodder. TKAK has them as real characters, with depth (ha ha) and a point of view.

Lira, our main Siren character, is fantastic. Flawed, exciting, often-controversial. She always seems to be standing between the ‘right’ decision and the ‘wrong’ decision, with seemingly justified reason to go either way. And what I mean by that is that even when she’s considering taking the ‘evil siren’ path, I’m thinking to myself, “Yup. I get it. Depending on the day, that might be the way I’d go, too.”

Our other main character, Prince Elian, I didn’t like nearly as much. Not at first, anyway. Sure, he was courageous in all ways physically, but emotionally (in his situation in life) he sure did a lot of bitchin’. “Poor me, I’m the price of a Kingdom. Poor me, I’m rich and don’t want to be.” By the end, he won me over, but he still doesn’t hold a candle to Lira’s awesomeness.

The plot was awesome and kept me guessing. I didn’t know where things were going to go. Even the few aspects I knew were coming, came with a twist that I didn’t expect. The climax was epic and full of scenes that are forever printed in my brain as these fantastic cinematic sequences!

The world was fantastic. It was familiar, but unique at the same time. A bunch of Kingdoms, surrounded by ocean. I couldn’t help but picture this massive ocean covered way more than 70% of the planet. In my mind, it looked more like Waterworld with small islands everywhere. Each place they went to (they weren’t really islands, that’s just what I was picturing) had its own dramatic flair. And Christo was able to show those differences without getting into heavy descriptions or info dumps. Really well done.

I would recommend this book to anyone. And I hope Alexandra Christo plans to write another book(s) with these characters in this world. I’m not sure that she will, but whatever she writes next, I’ll be waiting to read it!

Fun fact about this post: To Kill a Kingdom checks off the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge prompt: “A book set at Sea!”