To Kill a Kingdom

The skinny: You have Lira, a beautiful siren princess who rips royal hearts from their chests with her bare hands, and Elian, a witty pirate prince who makes a successful career out of hunting Lira\’s kind. How awesome is that??? The story takes off when Lira makes a mistake that pisses off her one-dimensional, evil queen mother, who turns her into a human as punishment. Lira now has to bring back Elian\’s heart to win her mother\’s favor and become a siren again. Dun-dun-dun. Thoughts: This book starts off with a bang. It\’s dark and different, and it paves the way for what I thought would be a fantastic story. I was riveted through the first quarter of the book, but my enthrallment slowly faded away as the story sailed on (pun intended). I was expecting a lot more from Lira\’s complex darkness, a nail-biting romance, and some fun pirate swashbuckling to top it all off. But both Lira\’s transition to humanity and her slow budding romance with Elian were underwhelming. And, you guessed it, no swashbuckling shenanigans. My rapt interest briefly returned toward the end of the story, when Elian finds out who Lira really is, but those scenes were followed by the final battle and ending which can be best described as lackluster. Let\’s just say it was an undeserving finale and wrap up for this book\’s potential. Bottom line: It wasn\’t what I was hoping it would be, but I still enjoyed the story, even with all its disappointments.

The story was interesting. A bit like a dark retelling of the Little Mermaid, if Ariel was a siren and had killed over a dozen men and taken their still-beating hearts. The biggest kicker for me was the male narrator. the female did her parts really well but the male– I was cringing through his reading. He read the male voices fine enough, but whenever he read a woman\’s part he spoke in the most halting manner, like he was learning to read each word as he read it. \”I… don\’t… think… that\’s… a … good… idea…\” I know it\’s hard to read for the opposite sex, but this was awful! It wasn\’t even just a poor accent, it was terribly done and I was rolling my eyes through every chapter he read. I\’m not sure if it was the narrator or also just the character himself, but Elian was so freaking annoying. He whines about everything– unless he\’s talking about how GREAT he is and how SKILLED and LUCKY he is. I really was about hoping Lyra would just take his heart, honestly. The unwilling prince is already a tired trope, bit Elian took it to a whole new level. He was constantly whimpering about how awful it was that he had to be a prince and couldn\’t just be a pirate. Boo hoo. I\’m normally not this negative, but I truly couldn\’t manage my disdain for his character. The female main was better and I wish we\’d have just gotten the book through he perspective alone.

The story is original and fresh, but there are a few chapters in the middle wi th some teenage love-hate banter that is sooo old, used and stereotypical that it was painful to listen to. Also the male main character could be slight less whiny. If you can tolerate those minor issues the story is innovative in its retelling of the Little Mermaid story

The story seemed to be alright. The female narrator was awesome. But I didn’t quite like the male part. His version of women’s tone was annoying with the pauses between words as if he was struggling to get them to talk. And I could barely differentiate between which female character was talking. So it was a struggle to listen to at times. I think I might have enjoyed it better if I read it on my own.

The premise of this book was intriguing. The protagonist is a siren who steals (literally ripping them out) prince\’s hearts for her birthday. Prince Elian is a siren hunter. And they are thrown together in a bid to defeat the sea queen. But I have to say it was a bit predictable. Lira hides her identity from Elian. When he finds out who she is their budding romance is threatened. Adventure, danger, star-crossed lovers – yadda, yadda, yadda. This book had potential but for me it was missing the unique quality that makes me devour a book.

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