I finished To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo and wow, what a ride! If you love dark retellings, this one will hook you right from the start. It’s a sharp, fast-paced take on The Little Mermaid with killer sirens, pirate princes, and a gripping enemies-to-lovers dynamic.

The story follows Lira, a ruthless siren known as the “Prince’s Bane,” who’s cursed to become human by her own mother, the Sea Queen and tasked to steal the heart of the Prince. The stakes are high, and the tension between Lira and the Prince is palpable from the moment they meet. Lira’s transformation—from a bloodthirsty killer to someone who questions everything she’s been taught—is written beautifully. And Elian, with his loyalty to his crew and kingdom, is a swoon-worthy, morally grey hero.

The banter between them is full of wit and sarcasm, and their chemistry builds at a perfect pace. Christo does a great job creating tension without rushing their relationship. The world-building is also a highlight, each kingdom feels unique, and the atmosphere shifts between eerie and adventurous.

The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was the ending. It wrapped up a bit too quickly for me, and I wish some parts had been explored in more depth, especially the Sea Queen’s motivations and the political landscape of the kingdoms. But overall, To Kill a Kingdom is a fierce and addictive fantasy that had me devouring each chapter.

I was thoroughly impressed with this. I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it was. I have long been out of the YA scene but this was a really pleasant surprise.

This was a retelling with some enhanced background, with a great quest and some really well done magic and romance moments.

It was a little obvious in places but its not a bad this. I would say that this would be safe for Teens and maybe coming-into-teen (10-11 yr old) kids. The romance as very PG and only goes as far as kissing.

This was written really well and honestly I'm not sure why I sat on this for so long. The only thing that I found was that I didn't quite connect with the characters. It was more like watching a movie rather than experiencing it at a theatre.

The Audio version was also well done with a male and female cast of 2. This helped to really separate the POV. All in all 4 stars.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review - for a full review check out my YouTube or Goodreads account

I flew through this, it was such a great fun read. I love anything pirate related and have never read about sirens before so it was a great introduction to them. I really enjoyed Lira's characterisation - she was a main character with sass and bite and attitude and I would have happily read more of her story. Elian was okay but a bit underdeveloped - I felt his reasons for killing the sirens was never fully explored as the prince he was getting revenge for died at the start of the book and he had already been hunting them for years by that point. It was also slightly unbelievable that as heir to the throne he was just allowed to gallavant off and be a pirate for months on end. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the plot and had fun reading it.

Had heard such good things about this book, and I hadn't read many books surrounding sirens before, so I thought it would be interesting to read and it certainly was! Not fully gripping at times but enjoyable enough.

I received an ARC through Netgalley all opinions are my own.

3 stars
If there's something you need to know about me it's that I used to be obsessed with mermaids.
So when I heard about this book, I just knew that I had to read it!
I liked this book, it was a short read for me. Yay for procrastination.
There wasn't anything that annoyed me. I found the story interesting, and I liked how Lira and Elian interacted.
It's sort of enemies to lovers, but not really since Elian doesn't know Lira is his enemy for most of the book.

Anyways I recommend this book.

I was instantly drawn to this book as I love any book that is based on fairy tales.
This one didn’t disappoint, from the very start I was enthralled in the story and loved every second of it.

This book could easily have been two or even three. A trilogy that would have spun a whole story in a world that we only glimpsed. I want to know more and see more. More of the world, the banter, the crew. Instead it was crammed into one book that was slow to start and then ran off so fast I felt robbed of the story, the romance and the adventure.

Grab this book for a weekend read and let your imagination fill in the blanks of the world and the story created.

Really great plot and idea for a retelling, amazing writing and world building. I particularly enjoyed the protagonist, and thought that the plot devices were really intriguing. The front cover is particularly interesting too.

After reading Princess of Souls, I came back to this one (I know, I did it backwards!) and I’m glad I did because I really enjoyed it! Like with Princess of Souls, I loved the lore, mythology and world building. Lira was also such a fascinating protagonist. Great writing & great storytelling, can’t believe it took me so long to get around to it!

This was a pretty fun read! I love the banter between Elian and Lira, though I wish there was more of it. I also wish that we learnt a lot more of the other characters, even though the book was through the POV of the two MC’s. I think the book could have been expanded a bit more with its descriptions and mostly the characters themselves, but generally speaking the story was quite fun to read. I was always a fan of mermaids (and sirens) since I was a child, so this added to reliving the days when I would daydream about them or watch The Little Mermaid on tv! Thanks to NetGalley for providing the ARC.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Bonnier Zaffre and the author, for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

To Kill a kingdom is the story of Lira, the Siren princess who is sent off to land as a punishment to kill and bring back the heart of the Prince Elain. Now the twist here is that Lira is the evil mermaid, her mother the cruel queen of Sirens our Ursula and Elain the prince who is also a pirate is our Eric.

Growing up Little mermaid has been my favoritest Disney movie and series (mostly because of the sound track) and this book sounded like just my jam. But boy was I wrong, the enemies to lovers didnt feel like it, the romance fell flat so did the plot. The only redeeming arc was our queen, she was vicious, poer hungry enough to even murder her own daughter.

This was an okay read for me....nothing special

This year, I don't have luck with YA fantasy. I know this, but I always try with a new book. A few years ago I read The Daughter of the Pirate King and I adored it, and because of that I really wanted to read this book, too. This was also a pirate book and I love retellings, too. Because this book was YA fantasy, I wasn't sure, I should read it, but I wanted to give it a shot to it. Luckily, I enjoyed this book :)

CAWPILE-rating: 8/10

Characters: 8 / 10
They were typical YA characters. Lira was a badass main character with a bloody past. She was a little bit annoying. Prince Elian was invulnerable and unappreciated which seemed cliché to me. But in the end, I enjoyed all the characters and the chemistry between them.

Atmosphere: 9 / 10
I really loved the worldbuilding and the atmosphere. It was great to be with romanticized pirates :)

Writing: 8 / 10
It was ok, but nothing special

Plot: 8 / 10
It was good, but nothing special, again. I loved the retelling aspect. Sometimes I felt, that the story slowed down too much.

Intrigue: 9 / 10
It kept my interest. It was fun.

Logic: 7 / 10
There were a few things which I think were not so logical. For example, I didn't understand how Lira can kill a prince without hesitation, then when she turns human, she has full of regrets.

Enjoyment: 7 / 10
I gave 4 stars for enjoyment. It was fun, but a little bit YA-ish. Overall, it was one of the best YA fantasy that I read this year.

This book was amazing and I couldn’t put it down much to my husbands disappointment. This was great from start to finish and i love the way the author described things from Lira’s blood red eye to the tentacles of the Sea Queen to the scars that over Prince Elian.

I would definitely read something by this author again.

This is an entertaining and unique book within the enemies become the love of their lives genre. An easy read with a humorous touch this is the story of Lira, a siren Princess ruled over by her tyrannical mother, and Elian, a siren killing Prince/pirate, and their search for redemption and something better. Which just maybe is with each other if they can stop trying to kill each other. Thank you to Hotkey Books and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine freely given.

Absolutely loved the whole little mermaid retelling as its one of my favorite stories although this one is definitely bloodier and darker!
Really enjoyed this more than I thought I would, so much I went and bought the physical copy of it too!

Thankyou netgalley for this arc

A siren and a prince, set to kill each other, end up falling for each other.
THere is nothing bad to say about this book, but i just didn"t feel all the emotions I wanted to. I had heard great things, and yet it clearly wasn't as ruthless as I wanted it to be.

A bloody take on the classic tale of the Little Mermaid, which provides all the banter, swashbuckling, and romance you need.

While I had some issues with pacing in the latter half of the book, and a confusing final battle that left little time for breathing room after a whole lot of nothing for a good few chapters, I found this book to generally be a pretty fun YA read, with a well fleshed out world and interesting characters.

If I could get on a boat and visit the world and all the kingdoms in it created by Alexandra Christo I wouldn't skip a beat.
Lira, a siren who has to kill princes in order to prove her worth to her kingdom.
Elian, a prince who longs to be a pirate and save his world from the threat of sirens. It was impossible to pick a side, you fell in love with both characters instantly.
Something about the story telling really made it feel as though you were right there with the characters. I felt I wanted them to succeed almost as if I knew them.
Huge love for this book. The little child in me that always wanted to be a mermaid got this grown up forbidden love story I always wanted. I will definitely be reading more of this author

Thank you Net Galley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I honestly don't know what I was expecting but both main characters being mass murders wasn't really it - even though I now know it's in the description. There was way more violence. It took me some time to get over all of that and accept that maybe this was a bit more upper YA than I initially thought.

After I did that, I was hooked. All characters had different depths, and I could understand the motive for each one which really helps world building.