I tried reading this one three or four times; and never could get in to the story- I am a fan of Kiera Cass's writing; but this particular book just did not grab me like I hoped it would. DNF.

Unputdownable YA romance from Kiera Cass. I expected to find this to be a fluffy teen read, which it was to a certain extend, but I found myself very invested in the characters and the storylines. I enjoyed it so much I went back and read all of Kiera Cass' other books.

Two kingdoms at odds with one another. Can enemies become lovers? More like forced lovers. I didn't feel it.

With your typical romance troubles found in young adult novels, nothing seemed new or exciting. Poor writing that was stretched out unecessarily with plot holes. The characters were not fleshed out and felt like cardboard cut outs. The dialogue did not match the setting of kingdoms. The mood did not seem to match the world. Overall, the poor writing, lack of believable characters, poor world building, and glaring plot holes ran this book into the ground.

Although this was not the best, I can see many young readers enjoying the story and the setting if they love princess and prince romance reads. However, it is not top-tier literature.

This story is another wonderful tale to add to Kiera Cass's beautiful collection. The way she writes pulls you in, and you want to delve deeper into her stories. :)

“Love has a sound. It sounds like a thousand heartbeats happening at the same time.”

As a HUGE fan of Selection series -- I was shrieking with happiness when I was approved for the arc of this new release!!

- Slow burn romance!
- Grumpy x Sunshine
- Fantasy Fairytale
&&& ENEMIES-TO-LOVERS!!!!

Another easy 5 Star review for this unputdownable fantasy romance for Kiera Cass!!

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

The King of Kadir was once a kind and loving father to Princess Annika, but he has changed into a cold, hard shell of a man and is sending her off to be married to a political ally she neither knows or loves.
Lennox is heir to the Dahrainian throne, but he feels more at home living a soldier's life and fighting on the front lines.
When a rebellious plan throws this unlikely pair together, fate steps in, and from from the moment they meet love takes over and leads the two even when they don't want to follow.

I’ve deliberately waited until the Harper Collins strike was over before sending in my review.

I’ve read several Kiera Cass books and unfortunately this one didn’t deliver for me. I feel like so much of the story existed just to tick off a trope. Annika and Lennox have an enemies to lovers relationship yet I find it hard to believe that Annika would have ever forgiven the man that single handedly murdered her mother. Lennox is supposed to be this non forgiving person in the army who will willingly kill people that break order. But we never see that side of him. The book starts with him coming back from killing- we never see it. He says he killed Annika’s mom- we never see it. He lets the people Annika’s father sent go- he never kills them. He lets Annika go even though he should kill her. I never really felt like Lennox was a bad guy. Therefore his redemption arc wasn’t really an arc at all.

So many of the characters didn’t need to be the way they were. Rhett, I felt was just as bad as …. And even he didn’t need to be bad. A simple indifference to Annika’s betrothed would’ve given us enough dislike to be on her side. He didn’t need to be mean and misogynistic. And Lennox’s “found family” just felt like it was thrown in there. They were told to go on a mission with Lennox who was known for heartlessly killing and then overnight they were willing to follow him blindly.

I did love the idea of Thistle, a fox is a very unique pet choice. Though she didn’t need to progress the plot like that. And I really like Annika’s brothers character. Unfortunately those small points didn’t sway much of my enjoyment of the book.

Like I mentioned before, this book is just a bunch of tropes thrown together in hopes that it’ll work. And I hate to say that they didn’t work for me.

“Love has a sound. It sounds like a thousand heartbeats happening at the same time.”

Annika has lived a life of comfort as the princess of Kadier—but no amount of luxuries can change the fact that her life isn’t her own to control. The king, once her loving father, has gone cold, and Annika will soon be forced into a loveless marriage for political gain.

Miles away, small comforts are few and far between for Lennox. He has devoted his life to the Dahrainian army, hoping to one day help them reclaim the throne that was stolen from them. For Lennox, the idea of love is merely a distraction—nothing will stand in the way of fighting for his people.

But when love, against all odds, finds them both, they are bound by its call. They can’t possibly be together—but the irresistible thrum of a thousand heartbeats won’t let them stay apart.

Kiera Cass brings her signature sparkling romance to this beautiful story of star-crossed lovers and long-held secrets.

“Love has a sound. It sounds like a thousand heartbeats happening at the same time.”

This is quite the adventure following Lennox and Annika. They lead such different lives but are still quite alike. I like how it says what each are doing at the same time. The side characters are great and I love Inigo and Noemi the best. I did fine Kawan and King Theron inept and annoying. Lennox should've just killed Kawan and taken over. I did enjoy Lennox and Annika's romance. although it felt a little rushed. I almost wish this was a duology or series so I could've gotten more out of it. It was definitely an interesting read though!

This wasn't the final edition so it's hard to review. This female's voice was good but it would've been better with a male and female voice since each chapter is done in Lennox's and Annika's POV.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperTeen for the review copy!

3.5 rounded up! This story has all my favorite elements: an enemy-turned-lover romance, a marriage of convenience, and a forbidden love. My expectations for A Thousand Heartbeats were more than surpassed. Our main character, Annika, is one of my favorites. Well-written. In short, she was dear to me. She was patient and firm when necessary. To put it simply, she could take care of herself. She was well-rounded, and she challenged everything. Seeing how much she cared for Noemi and other people was amazing. The affection amongst Escalus's siblings was beautiful, too. They are willing to give their lives for one another. A magnificent heartbreak was delivered by Lennox. His compassion was unaffected by his painful history. His humanity was revealed in small ways. Throughout the narrative, I came to respect his frank, guarded emotions. Just like Annika, he was a loyal friend. Excellence in character growth. The relationship between Annika and Lennox was strong. Because you don't know how much you want someone until you learn how difficult it is, Cass is a maestro of the enemies-to-lovers cliche. They didn't want competing goals to undermine each other. The fantastic worlds she created were classic Kiera Cass. She gave us enough detail to piece together the story without making it too challenging. This novel has a good pace. In terms of questions and answers, the story struck the right balance. Totally new framework made all the connections work. This book's alternating perspectives made it a satisfying read. I would have liked seeing more of Annika and Lennox's imaginations when they met by chance.

Thanks to HarperTeen, Netgalley

I am a huge fan of Kiera Cass and her series, "The Selection." I devoured those books in one sitting each, and I will most likely read and be a fan of anything she writes in the future. "A Thousand Heartbeats" was a sweet story, with main characters who reminded me of the leading couple (Prince Maxon and America) in the author's previous series. This book is sweetly romantic, and I really enjoyed the growth of their relationship from beginning to end.

I understand that the audio version on NetGalley is a robotic recording, and tested out the final version through my library's digital collection after reading it. The final version is excellent!

For a romance-loving teenager, this book is perfect; there are plenty of declarations of love, passionate kisses, forbidden relationships, love triangles, and chivalrous acts. And the best part is that it's all extremely clean; the romantic scenes never become inappropriate and there are zero bad words.
Now as a married adult, I was constantly rolling my eyes because of how corny and unrealistic so many parts were, but I know many of my teenage students will absolutely adore this book.

Utterly adorable. This was a cute, romantic fantasy that was highly consumable even with its tome like size. Lennox and Annika are at war with each other. Their kingdoms are in battle and these two find themselves on opposing sides. Their tale is one of loyalty, secrets and forbidden love and I found it to be so enjoyable! There were so many forces trying to tear these two apart which only added to the stakes of their love story. This is a slow-burn romance that unfolds in such a way that you will find yourself falling for these characters as they fall for themselves. Their love is so sweet and while some things in this book may have been predictable I didn't care because I was completely charmed.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc. As always my thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.

Enemies to lovers with different social status' meets heroic fantasy theme sounds like it could be a winner. The story is told in dual POV, The characterization was really good. Both of the main characters are pretty well described and thought out, Lennox was more enjoyable for me personally. He has that snarky, brutish attitude with sarcasm and sass. Both of the main characters suffer from dysfunctional family issues, resentments, wanting the best for their country, and they both have the attitude they will sacrifice anything for their countries.

Kiera Cass loves to tell the same type of story - it's like her MO. She loves and enemies to lovers story, with different social status', throw a love triangle in there - and one has to be royalty. All that being said she had a lot of success with The Selection series, and hadn't really seen much success in any of her books in the past few years. I'm sure it has been a difficult road for her, as all the other books she has written are constantly compared to The Selection, and it seems like a high mark to hit. I think others, along with myself, kept reading her books because there is something about her stories she does really well and we were hoping to see it again. I think ultimately this book is a good read, and if you are hoping to find a book that will take you back to when you read The Selection series, this might do it for you.

This audiobook was done with a synthetic voice - it really makes you take good narration for granted when you have no differing tone or any inflection while hearing a book.

Thanks to #Netgalley for an advance reader copy of this book.
#AThousandHeartbeats

This book feels back to Selection. It is a story about princess in waiting that is powerful girl that will never have chance of ruling her country because of her gender. I enjoyed Selection series and this book brought me back to those memories even though it had more twists. In this book you fall in love with a character that is a killer. Author presents great job showing brutal of war and killings for "survival" . Characters that you hate at the beginning you love by the end of the book and characters that you love at the beginning you hate at the end. We all have opportunity to change and become better people - Kiera shows that in this book the choice is ours even if we blame society.

As a big fan of the Selection Series, I was extremely excited to see Kiera Cass has a new book being released. Thank you to Net Galley for the advance audiobook. I really enjoyed listening to this enemies to romance stand alone book. The characters were very well developed and now I know that love does have a sound: "A Thousand Heartbeats". I will recommend this to our YA patrons and even to our older patrons who don't necessarily enjoy the descriptive love scenes in a lot of the adult romance books.

This audiobook is awful BUT I know it's just a mockup of the real thing. That being said, this is definitely a slow burn book, so much so that you sometimes wish you never started it but it gets good. Real good. Kiera Cass did it again, her world building is amazing and while her characters are starting to blend into one another, I admired our MC's strength and hopeless romantic nature. Highly recommend.

This was a good audio book. I enjoyed the overall story. Will it was a computer generated voice it was still well done.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Audio for providing me with an e-arc of this synthesized audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

I love Kiera Cass! This book did not disappoint. I loved main characters. The characters grow and develop at a great rate. I like that the book changed point of views between Annika and Lennox. This helped get both sides to their story and their struggles. While the first half of the book is slower, it sets up the second half well and is crucial to the plot development.

Since I listened to the audiobook, I felt that I missed some tone and attitudes of the characters. Because of how the audiobook was narrated, I felt that the characters fell flat. The narrator sounded very computerized, which made it very difficult to distinguish the point of view and who was talking to each other.

yGreat new read from Cass. Star crossed lovers-kingdoms won and lost--deceit, treachery, this book has it all.