Publication: 27th June 2023 – Hodderscape
Words sting. Songs kill.
The Cruel Prince meets To Kill a Kingdom in this seductive YA fantasy debut, in which a siren must choose between protecting her family and following her heart in a prejudiced kingdom where her existence is illegal.
Saoirse Sorkova survives on secrets. As the last siren in her kingdom, she can sing any man to an early grave – but her very existence is illegal, and if her true identity were ever discovered, it would be her life on the line.
By day, Saoirse disguises herself as a fae, pretending to be the perfect soldier-in-training. By night, she satisfies her darker urges working as an assassin for dangerous mercenaries. And all the while, she keeps the biggest secret of all: that she is not always in control of her Siren powers, or her desire to kill.
Then a blackmailer threatens her sister, and Saoirse’s investigation takes her to the royal palace, and her most dangerous job yet: personal bodyguard to the Crown Prince.
Saoirse expects to despise Prince Hayes. But he is kind, thoughtful, and charming, and she finds herself increasingly drawn to him . . . until he tasks her with investigating a killer plaguing the kingdom. The problem: the killer is Saoirse.
Trapped by her deadly double life, Saoirse can’t leave the palace until she saves her sister . . . but who will save her from herself?
Sirens, fae, witches, a morally gray heroine, and conspiracies. I loved Sing Me to Sleep!!!
Everyone knows that sirens were killed many years ago when a king created a barrier around his kingdom to protect it from its enemies. Now the fae have control, the witches have their magic, and the humans are servants. What they don’t know is that there is still a siren alive, hiding in plain sight, training to become a guard. Saoirse Sorkova is a siren with a thirst to kill. Beautiful and deadly, her song can persuade anyone, human or magic, to do her bidding. By night, she is a killer for hire, but she doesn’t know who pays her or who her victims are.
Graduating first in her class, Saoirse is chosen as a royal guard for the handsome, charming, and kind prince Hayes. She should refuse because the Palace is a dangerous place for her, but when someone threatens the person she loves most in the world, her sister Rain, and all clues lead to the Palace, she has no choice but to accept the job to find out who is after her family. Once inside the Palace, she discovers that her family may not be the only one in danger and there are much darker secrets to uncover.
Saoirse is a well-developed and fierce protagonist. All her life, she’s been hiding her true identity and her nature, trying to fight the call from the water to kill and destroy. Everything she does, the killing and accepting the job as a royal guard, is to protect her family, but, most of all, her younger sister Rain. She expected to hate prince Hayes, but she didn’t expect to find him funny, benevolent, and almost impossible to resist.
There are twists, suspense, political intrigue, assassination attempts, blackmailing, betrayals, a fantastic world-building, with a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance filled with witty exchanges and desire that kept me immersed in the story. Sing Me to Sleep is a compelling and thrilling fantasy debut and I am already looking forward to its sequel.
A huge thank you to Hodderscape and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel.
Gabi Burton grew up reading and writing in St. Louis, Missouri before moving to Maine where she graduated from Bowdoin College. She now works as a paralegal and author on the East Coast. When she’s not working, writing, or reading, she’s probably watching Netflix, scrolling Twitter, or finding beautiful places to walk – preferably near a body of water.
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