Books Like To Kill a Kingdom
If you finished To Kill a Kingdom and want more enemies to lovers, fairy tale retellings, curses, start here. Each pick shares at least two tropes with it, and we've rated every one for spice and darkness so you know what you're getting into.
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The picks
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1. House of Salt and Sorrows
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses, forbidden love
Annaleigh lives in a seaside manor with her sisters, four of whom have already died, and the rest keep sneaking off to enchanted balls every night. The Twelve Dancing Princesses as gothic horror. The romance is light. The creep factor isn't.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Death of a loved one, Murder, Gore
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2. Wildwood Dancing
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses, forbidden love
Every full moon Jena and her sisters slip through a portal in their Transylvanian castle to dance with the folk of the Other Kingdom. Twelve Dancing Princesses with a dash of the Frog Prince, and Gogu the frog steals the show.
- Fae
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Physical or emotional abuse, Death of a loved one
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3. The Wrath and the Dawn
Shares: fairy tale retellings, enemies to lovers, curses
The caliph of Khorasan takes a new bride every night and kills her at dawn. Shahrzad volunteers to avenge her best friend and keeps herself alive with stories. A Thousand and One Nights retelling with slow enemies to lovers and gorgeous food and clothes.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Enemies to Lovers
- Arranged Marriage
- Curses
Content warnings
Murder, Death of a loved one, Suicide or suicidal thoughts
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4. A Court of Thorns and Roses
Shares: enemies to lovers, fairy tale retellings, curses
Beauty and the Beast with fae and a lot more blood. The first half is slow and the second half under the mountain is why everyone kept going. Book two is where it gets good, honestly.
- Fae
- Enemies to Lovers
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Torture, Murder, Dubious or non-consent
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5. A Cursed Kiss
Shares: curses, enemies to lovers, forbidden love
Keelynn's sister died from a Gancanagh's cursed kiss, so she teams up with a witch and the half-fae Tadhg to bring her back. Irish folklore all the way down. There's a lot of miscommunication, but Tadhg carries it.
- Fae
- Curses
- Enemies to Lovers
- Morally Gray
Content warnings
Death of a loved one, Murder, Graphic violence
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6. Sky in the Deep
Shares: enemies to lovers, forbidden love
Eelyn spots her supposedly dead brother fighting for the enemy clan, then gets captured and has to winter in their village. Viking-flavored, short and bloody, with the enemy slowly turning into family. No spice at all.
- Enemies to Lovers
- Captor and Captive
- Forbidden Love
- Forced Proximity
Content warnings
War, Graphic violence, Death of a loved one
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7. These Vile Hearts
Shares: curses, enemies to lovers, forbidden love
Maddox is type 1 diabetic, just lost her job and her insurance, and makes a deal with a dryad queen: kill the Redwood King and get cured. Then she mistakes his cursed brother Castor for him. Funny, angry about real healthcare, and a very good debut.
- Deals and Bargains
- Curses
- Enemies to Lovers
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Murder
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8. These Violent Delights
Shares: enemies to lovers, forbidden love
Romeo and Juliet in 1926 Shanghai. Juliette is heir to the Scarlet Gang, Roma is heir to the rival White Flowers, and a contagion is making people tear their own throats out. Atmospheric and gory, with a monster in the Huangpu River.
- Enemies to Lovers
- Forbidden Love
- Morally Gray
Content warnings
Gore, Graphic violence, Murder, Suicide or suicidal thoughts
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9. A Curse So Dark and Lonely
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses
Harper, a girl from DC with cerebral palsy, gets snatched into Prince Rhen's cursed kingdom, where every autumn ends with him turning into a monster. The quiet guard commander Grey steals the whole book. Clean YA, more about duty than kissing.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
- Forced Proximity
- Slow Burn
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Death of a loved one
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10. Ash
Shares: fairy tale retellings, forbidden love
Cinderella with a fairy named Sidhean who wants to take Ash away forever, and the King's Huntress Kaisa, who teaches her to love the woods again. A quiet, lyrical sapphic retelling where the fae are cold and the human is warm.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Fae
- Forbidden Love
- Slow Burn
Content warnings
Physical or emotional abuse, Death of a loved one
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11. For the Wolf
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses
Red, the queen's second daughter, is sent into the Wilderwood as a sacrifice to the Wolf and finds a grumpy Warden named Eammon bleeding into the trees to keep them back. Red Riding Hood meets Beauty and the Beast with forest horror. Slow and tender.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
- Forced Proximity
- Slow Burn
Content warnings
Gore, Graphic violence
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12. Gilded
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses
Rumpelstiltskin from the miller's daughter's side. Serilda's tall tales catch the Erlking's attention, he locks her in his haunted castle to spin straw into gold, and a ghost boy named Gild does it for her. Long and slow in the middle, but the Wild Hunt is properly creepy.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Curses
- Deals and Bargains
- Captor and Captive
Content warnings
Kidnapping, Murder, Death of a loved one, Physical or emotional abuse
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13. Heartless
Shares: fairy tale retellings, forbidden love
Before she was the Queen of Hearts, Cath just wanted to open a bakery and dodge a proposal from the King of Hearts. Then the court joker Jest shows up. You know how it has to end and Meyer makes you hope anyway. That ending hurts.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Forbidden Love
- Arranged Marriage
Content warnings
Death of a loved one, Murder
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14. Hunted
Shares: fairy tale retellings, curses
Yeva, a huntress in a snowy Russian-style kingdom, tracks the Beast that killed her father and ends up his prisoner, being trained to hunt for him. Beauty and the Beast with folktales, a bow and a heroine who hates the ballroom.
- Fairy Tale Retellings
- Captor and Captive
- Curses
- Slow Burn
Content warnings
Kidnapping, Animal death, Death of a loved one
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15. Night of the Witch
Shares: enemies to lovers, forbidden love
Sixteenth-century Germany, where the witch trials are real and so is magic. Fritzi is a witch, Otto is a witch hunter, and they need each other to find her missing brother. Alternating chapters with real historical dread underneath.
- Witches
- Enemies to Lovers
- Forbidden Love
- Forced Proximity
Content warnings
Torture, Graphic violence, Murder, Death of a loved one
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