Alexandra Christo’s debut novel, To Kill a Kingdom, is a YA fantasy adventure told through the eyes of Lira, a Prince killing siren and Elian, a siren killing Prince. It has parallels to Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and many have described it as a re-telling, however this is so much darker and has so much more depth to it.
A cruel and harsh dictator rules over the sirens, Lira’s mother, The Sea Queen. She is as cruel to her daughter as she is to all her other subjects. She rules through fear and feeds on the power. She demands that all sirens should kill a human every year during the month of their birthday – so this is what Lira does. However, to prove herself to her mother Lira always kills a Prince and has made a name for herself – The Princes Bane.
Elian is the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Midas, although he wishes he wasn’t. He has made it his life’s mission to rid the world of all sirens, especially The Princes Bane. Aboard his beloved ship, The Saad, he and his crew sail the world, from port to port, eating, drinking and siren hunting. He is certainly more pirate than Prince.
What I loved:
• The shift between character perspective – in one chapter your seeing things through the eyes of Lira, in the next Elian. I thought this would get confusing at first but it worked so well and I felt I got to know the inner workings of both lead characters.
• The banter – me and my other half enjoy a bit of banter and we’re always taking the mick out of each other. The characters in To Kill a Kingdom are no different. I especially loved the banter between Elian and Lira, the chemistry between them was electric at times.
• The descriptive writing - I could really visualise the world Christo had created. Each land they visited was clear in my mind. She really painted a picture with the words she obviously so carefully chose.
• My love/hate relationship with Lira and Elian – at first I didn’t like Lira, I felt she had no redeeming qualities. Then she started to grow on me. Somewhere during the middle of the novel I started to dislike Elian, due to his ruthlessness. By the end I loved them both. I then realised that the bouncing back and forth between like and dislike showed how much depth the characters had and how invested I had gotten in the story.
What I wasn’t so keen on:
• The structure of the dialogue. On occasion it could be quite difficult to follow who was speaking as the dialogue jumped from one character to another.
• Depth of supporting characters – as the story is so focused on the two lead characters I felt like I didn’t get to know the supporting characters very well. Occasionally a character’s name would be mentioned and I’d be like ‘who’s he?’ I’d have to go back and double check.
In summary, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves YA fantasy novels involving adventures and quests. It was a great escape from reality and a relatively easy read. A fantastic debut novel.
A cruel and harsh dictator rules over the sirens, Lira’s mother, The Sea Queen. She is as cruel to her daughter as she is to all her other subjects. She rules through fear and feeds on the power. She demands that all sirens should kill a human every year during the month of their birthday – so this is what Lira does. However, to prove herself to her mother Lira always kills a Prince and has made a name for herself – The Princes Bane.
Elian is the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Midas, although he wishes he wasn’t. He has made it his life’s mission to rid the world of all sirens, especially The Princes Bane. Aboard his beloved ship, The Saad, he and his crew sail the world, from port to port, eating, drinking and siren hunting. He is certainly more pirate than Prince.
What I loved:
• The shift between character perspective – in one chapter your seeing things through the eyes of Lira, in the next Elian. I thought this would get confusing at first but it worked so well and I felt I got to know the inner workings of both lead characters.
• The banter – me and my other half enjoy a bit of banter and we’re always taking the mick out of each other. The characters in To Kill a Kingdom are no different. I especially loved the banter between Elian and Lira, the chemistry between them was electric at times.
• The descriptive writing - I could really visualise the world Christo had created. Each land they visited was clear in my mind. She really painted a picture with the words she obviously so carefully chose.
• My love/hate relationship with Lira and Elian – at first I didn’t like Lira, I felt she had no redeeming qualities. Then she started to grow on me. Somewhere during the middle of the novel I started to dislike Elian, due to his ruthlessness. By the end I loved them both. I then realised that the bouncing back and forth between like and dislike showed how much depth the characters had and how invested I had gotten in the story.
What I wasn’t so keen on:
• The structure of the dialogue. On occasion it could be quite difficult to follow who was speaking as the dialogue jumped from one character to another.
• Depth of supporting characters – as the story is so focused on the two lead characters I felt like I didn’t get to know the supporting characters very well. Occasionally a character’s name would be mentioned and I’d be like ‘who’s he?’ I’d have to go back and double check.
In summary, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves YA fantasy novels involving adventures and quests. It was a great escape from reality and a relatively easy read. A fantastic debut novel.