B's Monday Review: The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

Narrated by: Brian Nishii, Natalie Naudus

Series: The Kiss Quotient Series, Book 3

Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins

Release date: 09-02-21

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Fiction romance /storytel.fi

This was not a contemporary romance. Yes there is romance, but also so much more and with a focus on Anna falling into darkness.

Anna fell apart after a viral video and she feels like she cant play the violin anymore. Then her boyfriend says he wants an open relationship. Her shrink tells her she thinks Anna is on the spectrum. And she just goes all I will have a hook up and that will be it.

But a hook up is not as easy as it sounds. Quan has his own demons after having had surgery. He is starting to fall for Anna and the hook up that never happens. Anna is torn between her failed relationship, her strained relationship with her family and this new budding feeling for Quan who is just so right.

And there is like I said so much more. Anna´s depression, her feelings of having to say yes to everyone and everything. To sacrifice herself for family as something happens. She is falling to pieces and that is there it goes from contemporary romance to something else. Very deep and sad, and with some real issues.

I liked it a lot and I rooted for these two even in the darkest hours. Quan was lovely and I really wanted Anna to put herself first.

Great narration. I am not sure if I have listened to these two before, but they were both good. Each told their POVs well and I liked how it all worked together.

When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She's going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better. 

That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex - he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she has just started to understand herself. 

However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family, she takes on a role that she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. 

Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.