Into The Crooked Place
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Borrow
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review!
Magic rules the city of Creije Capital and Tavia Syn knows just how many tricks she needs up her sleeve to survive. Selling dark magic on the streets for her kingpin, she keeps clear of other crooks, counting the days until her debt is paid and she can flee her criminal life.
But then, one day, with her freedom in sight, Tavia uncovers a sinister plot that threatens to destroy the realm she calls home. Desperate to put an end to her kingpin's plan, Tavia forms an unlikely alliance with three crooks even more deadly than her:
Wesley, the kingpin's prodigy and most renewed criminal in the realm
Karam, an underground fighter with a penchant for killing first and forgetting to ask questions
And Saxony, a Crafter in hiding who will stop at nothing to avenge her family
With the reluctant saviours assembled, they embark on a quest to put an end to the dark magic before it's too late. But even if they can take down the kingpin and save the realm, the one thing they can't do is trust each other.
I was very, very excited for this book. I read and loved Christo's To Kill a Kingdom, it's one of my favourite books and so I expected big things from this. A gang of misfits, a heist...but with Christo's storytelling and her originality from To Kill a Kingdom? Sign me up! However, as I was reading this, I just wasn't as grabbed and invested as I'd expected to be. If I'm being completely honest, as I was reading all I could think was 'this is essentially Six of Crows just with a different magic system'.
The magic system we were presented with was intriguing, and I was curious about it, there was a nice amount of initial world building that was enough to pique your interest but not overwhelm you and I always love morally grey characters like Tavia. I was also loving the whole magic black market, gangsters thing we had going on. Karam I particularly enjoyed out of all the characters, she was badass and I liked the humour and banter there was between not just she and Tavia but all of the characters in the book. The cast of characters was diverse, there's some intrigue and there's a lot of magic sprinkled with some action.
However, there's not much else that I really have to say about this book. It was an okay book, it wasn't anything that really stands out to me among the multitude of other similar books. Wesley really reminded me of Kaz Brekker and I thought it more than once as I was reading. The characters are interesting, but I don't feel like they had enough depth to them. I wasn't overly attached to or invested in any of them, though they were likeable enough. I enjoyed the f/f romance, but after a certain point it became a little bit repetitive and as much as I liked the initial world building, I'd have liked to delve deeper because unless I missed something....I still have no idea why magic was outlawed. Much like the characters, there just wasn't enough depth to it for me.
The writing was good, as was the world building and there were some great twists to it. I just struggled to make it to the end of the book and if it hadn't been an arc I probably would have DNF'd it. I never found it hard to put down, I found it hard to pick up because I wasn't that enthused with it although it did pick up towards the end, I'm still not sure I'll pick up the sequel. It's a lot of struggle to get to the really good stuff, and it was a little too predictable at points.
My main problem with the book is that it felt quite bland to me. I found that it didn't stand out from Six of Crows and Gilded Wolves and so on, which is disappointing to me because I was expecting Christo to put her own brand of originality on this and take what's becoming a YA trope and make it something new and exciting and different to everything else. But the entire time I was reading I could just pick up echoes of other books and it felt very same-y to me as I was reading which was the biggest disappointment for me when it came to this book.
To Kill A Kingdom
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!
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?
To Kill a Kingdom drew me in right from the start, and I finished this in two sittings, it was so hard to put it down! I'd have read it in one if I wasn't reading it on set! The descriptions and writing style where beautiful and fit the story and characters so well, like how Christo describes Lira's lips as the colour of sailors blood and so on! I loved the imagery so much!
The first chapter itself actually gives you quite a bit of information on the world of the book and how things work all woven concisely in to the plot. The book then expands and adds in details throughout the book as the story progresses, something that I enjoyed as it kept me on my toes! I particularly liked the difference between the mermaids and the sirens, it was an original and intriguing one and helped this book stand out from any other.
As for the characters, I loved Lira a hell of a lot! Her attitude and her narrative voice where brilliant, as where her quick comebacks. In the world of the sirens, awfulness is valued over friendship and that having been drilled in to Lira, along with various other things by her mother, made for an interesting MC, especially as living as a human changes Lira. I really enjoyed seeing her character develop and change over the course of the book but still maintain her attitude right up until the end! She's basically you know...kind of a villain but I loved her and rooted for her completely! Christo wasn't afraid to embrace the darkness for Lira's character.
Elian is our other narrator and I loved him from the first sentence, "Technically, I'm a murderer, but I like to think that's one of my better qualities". I really empathised with him and how he felt when he was at home and so on. I think a lot of readers will be able to relate to him, and I liked that he was actually quite similar to Lira. They had some brilliant banter, and I loved the entire romance and relationship between the two of them. It could quite easily have been cheesy and fairy tale worthy to match The Little Mermaid, but it wasn't and their relationship really fit them. The author didn't try to make them something they weren't to make the romance work. Their sarcasm and piratey-ness was just so brilliant and I just really freaking loved them okay! They where morally grey and I loved how they where written together and separately!
Along with our main two characters, we have Kye and Madrid who where also completely brilliant and I kinda wish we'd gotten to see more of them! They where hilariously sweet together. I actually loved all of Elian's entire crew to be honest, and their bantering with each other had me smiling.
To Kill a Kindgom is brilliantly paced, with a vivid and imaginative world that sucks you in. There's action, and the final part of the book has you on the edge of your seat. Elian and Lira have their cute moments but they're morally grey characters, and Christo hasn't been afraid to embrace the darkness when it comes to them, they're equals and so similar, and so suited to each other and you can't help but end up loving them and rooting for them and shipping them so hard! I'd been super excited for this book since last year, and it didn't disappoint at all!
