So personally, Hans Christian Anderson is just not a writer I look to for happy endings, especially after he turned the mermaid into sea foam at the end. When I’m five it’s not the story I was looking for. And Disney kind of screwed it up for me with the whole giving up of the voice for a man. The Disney movie is always phenomenal but it’s not what I look for in my Little Mermaid retellings. So when I read the summary of To Kill A Kingdom, I was ecstatic.

To Kill A Kingdom is written by Alexandra Christo and was released in March 2018. It follows the story of a siren Lira who prides herself on stealing the hearts of Princes and the Prince Elian who just so happens to be the siren hunter of the hundred kingdoms. The premise is clearly Little Mermaid with the flaming red hair of the siren to the romance between the two protagonists and the beautiful singing that sirens generally manage to produce. But everything else was a completely new dish, one where the flavours burst upon your tongue, in a delightful new way as each chapter came and went.

One of the biggest things that sold this book for me was the world-building that Christo has carried out. She’s created a world with a hundred kingdoms and I could tell that each one had been thought out in terms of trade and culture and history. That for me was so appealing because to create that kind of immersive world is so immensely difficult, very few are able to achieve it. It’s almost on par to J. K. Rowlings Hogwarts world.

I think what I adored about this rendition was the fact that this wasn’t an insta-love story. Insta-love is the most hated trope in my back pocket. There was a slow build up to the romance between Lira and Elia, and there was a lot of banter that brought them closer gradually. It was the perfect blend of infatuation and flirtations and loyalty that brought the romance to perfection.

The characters are well fleshed out and they tie together in their own ways. I love that the protagonists were well described, because for me leaving appearances to imagination is very unfulfilling. So I liked being able to envision both Elian and Lira and build the scenes up in my head. The language was descriptive and written with a harsh sort of beauty matching the theme that Christo tried to intertwine within the sirens themselves.

SPOILER ALERT!!! I loved that the book ended with Lira in a more powerful position than Elian. It was a lovely way to end the book giving Lira what she deserved and allowing Elian to be what he wanted and not conform to what was expected of him.

This was a five star for me. I loved every aspect. From the characters to the plot to the entire retelling aspect. It was brilliant, and something I’d read again when in a romance slump.