This book reminded me of a darker Little Mermaid! I was so
hooked that I got through this one in an afternoon. Good if you like fairy
tales with a twist and protagonists that aren’t as black-and-white!
Lira is a siren princess with an evil mother, who has shaped
Lira into a cold killer. Lira is the Prince’s Bane, because every year on her
birthday, she kills a prince and takes his heart. Lira’s mother, the Sea Queen,
is power hungry and rules by suppressing her subjects through fear, and
maintains the rule that a siren must take the heart of a sailor every year.
While the Sea Queen is supposed to retire soon and pass down the mantle, she
doesn’t want to give up the throne and tries to prevent Lira from being seen as
a legitimate successor. To punish Lira, she turns her to a human and orders her
to take the heart of the prince Elian as a human.
Elian is a pirate prince. Prince by birth, pirate by choice.
He resents the crown he’s supposed to inherit, and would rather spend his time
with his crew on the ocean. His chosen calling is finding and killing sirens,
and he especially wants to find the Prince’s Bane. He doesn’t trust anyone
outside of his crew, including the wet, naked female he finds drowning in the
middle of the ocean — Lira. Ultimately, he wants to destroy the Sea Queen, as
well as the Prince’s Bane, and then kill all the sirens so they no longer pose
a threat. He’s willing to die for his goals, and has a plan to find the tool he
needs to kill them all — a stone that will give him the power to kill all
sirens. When Lira claims to know about the ritual he needs to unlock what he
seeks, he’s forced to bring her along on his journey. She wants to use the
stone for her own purposes, and sees Elian as a means to an end that will
restore her place as the future queen of the sirens. And she’ll take his heart
anyway afterwards, to make her mother proud.
Lira’s transformation throughout the book is perfect. She
strives to make her mother proud, which is an impossible goal. The ruthlessness
in Lira is a product of her mother’s messed-up parenting, and while Lira
continually looks for ways to kill the prince, she ends up getting the space
she needs from her mother to figure out what kind of leader she wants to be.
She sees the example Elian sets, and how his people love him. Granted, this is
after A LOT of defiance and the brainwashing takes time to drain out of her
system, but it also feels more natural that way. Elian and Lira antagonize each
other for most of the book. But they have common ground, and really are almost
identical in their personalities and values.
While they joke throughout the book that Elian isn’t your
typical chivalrous prince, he still has many prince-like qualities. No, he’s
not a docile lamb. He’s much more entertaining. He’s cocky, witty, and not
interested in saving damsels. But he’s also willing to die for his cause, and
has earned the loyalty of his crew, who follows him with even more devotion
than his citizens have for the king because their devotion isn’t blind and
required. Lira and Elian’s relationship builds slowly and realistically, and
they’ve got great banter. There’s no insta-love, which I’m grateful for. And
the ending is a happy one for both characters!
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