30 books that you can totally judge by their covers

To Kill a Kingdom – Alexandra Christo

Anyone with a soft spot for stories about mermaids and sirens is sure to love Alexandra Christo’s To Kill a Kingdom — and its beautiful cover. The cover embodies the sea, with whirlpools and tentacles making up the majority of it. And you have to admit, the sword adds a nice touch too.

Plotwise, To Kill a Kingdom follows two main characters, one of them a prince-killing siren and the other a siren-hunting prince. Naturally, the two harbor a lifetime of prejudice towards one another. But when Lira, our siren princess, is cast out by her mother and turned into a human, she winds up on Prince Elian’s ship. With no knowledge of what she truly is, he takes her under his wing.

And the more time Lira spends with Elian’s crew, the more she realizes that everything she knows about humans isn’t true. As a hate-to-love romance begins to blossom between her and Elian, Lira must decide between returning to her mother or forging her own path — one that could involve fostering peace between humans and sirens.