Review Detail

A Thousand Heartbeats by Kiera Cass is a good choice for a stand-alone fantasy romance. It is told in alternating perspectives from Lennox and Annika. Annika is a Princess in Kadier being forced into an unhappy marriage arrangement that her father has demanded. Lennox is under the thumb of a ruthless leader who wants to take the throne as the lost and rightful people who were slaughtered in the distant past and sent to wandering without a home. These backgrounds set the stage for an epic fated love story.
The author took her time to develop the conflict and the history of the realm. I pined for the times that Lennox and Annika would be together. My favorite part of the book was the forced proximity during the battle when Annika and Lennox bond while sheltering from a hurricane. It was a bit of an instalove that the author tried to mitigate by establishing a time in their childhood when they had met.
It was a dramatic premise that Lennox murdered her mother. However, I am not sure we needed to go to the level that the death was by his hand, to establish them as enemies. That would have been a lot to forgive and they were not together during the story that much to have the time to fall madly in love making it a bit of a stretch. I was also scratching my head that once it was established that Lennox was telling the truth about his people and Annika discovered his lineage, they were so slow to conclude that they could now marry to give her the political marriage that she was destined for.
There were a couple of details that took me out of the moment of the story. They had this history that was full of made-up names and a fantasy world, yet their constellations had our Earth names. I thought it was interesting that both Lennox and Annika had people that loved them and they could have loved in return. It did make their feelings for each other feel more like a fated love. So, I don’t know that both of these wonderful other people needed to become so unhinged and destructive once they were gently rejected. It also seems a bit farfetched that Annika’s kingdom knows nothing of Lennox’s people who are just on the other side of a forest. The forest was explained as dangerous and most people cannot cross it successfully, yet that is exactly what everyone was doing with ease.
Overall, if you want a standalone romance to sweep you away in a fated lovers’ story this is a good choice. It feels like this book would work particularly well for younger readers who may like the drama and nothing was graphic. I like that Annika’s character was strong and that she put arrogant men in their places making her an easy character to like.