The plot had potential, but the execution left much to be desired.
In a high fantasy world, one semi-idyllic kingdom thrives while a pseudo-nation of castaways, once part of the original kingdom and now rejected, seeks to take them down.
Princess Annika loved her mother more than anything, but she went missing several years ago, and was never heard from again. (In fact I thought this relationship in retrospect was the most believable relationship in the book.) She still has her beloved brother and her ladies’ maid (who–spoiler alert, though it’s fairly obvious early on – is secretly in a relationship with the Crown Prince), but her father is cold and distant. Her father has also betrothed her to Nicholas, an alternately pathetic and loathsome character, but Annika thinks that marrying him will bring stability to her nation, so she’s willing to go along with it.
In the neighboring territory, Lennox is a warrior who blames Annika’s nation for murdering his father. When Annika’s mother becomes their prisoner, Lennox has the unpleasant task of executing her. But she’s haunted him ever since, because she died so well. Later, when Annika becomes his prisoner too, he puts together who she must be.
At least the romance doesn’t blossom between them right away. She escapes, with the knowledge that Lennox believes that their tribe are the rightful rulrs of her nation, rather than her family. When all-out war later breaks out, they encounter one another again on the battlefield. A series of convenient catastrophic weather phenomena and terrain challenges conspire to bring them together while preventing them from killing each other, which leads to their very rapid enemies-to-lovers conversion. “Love sounds like a thousand heartbeats”–that’s where the title comes from, so you can pretty well guess how nauseating the ensuing scenes are of the two of them together.
And yet I kept listening until the end, I guess because it was just entertaining enough, and it was clean (which in and of itself is remarkable). The characterization was poor, but there was a slightly too perfect happily-ever-after, complete with an epilogue of babies. I did a little eye-rolling at that, I’m not gonna lie, but I prefer that to tragedy!
My rating: **1/2
Language: none
Violence: fantasy only
Sexual content: none
Political content: none
