Goodreads: shorturl.at/rxNY0
My Rating: 5 Stars
The Bridge Kingdom is easily one of my new favorite reads of the year. I can safely say that it is also one of my favorite fantasy books I’ve ever read. It’s short, but action packed. It’s steamy with an awesome slow burn, it has many badass female characters, and it’s full of atmospheric world building and politics. Also, it’s a new adult book! Which means we’re following older characters and things get a bit sexy. A recipe for PERFECTION. Seriously though, this book is so underrated and I know that I’ve just hyped it up but I hope that you all pick this book up and give it a chance, because it deserves it.
The beginning of this book was so strong. If you don’t know, I have the worst luck with fantasy books. I really want to love them but every time I pick one up, I struggle. I very rarely pick up fantasy books and have made it my goal this year to pick up more of them. I think the reason why fantasy books are so intimidating for me is because I read them much slower and it’s really hard for me to get into. For all the above reasons, I was feeling a bit tentative going into this book. I really didn’t have to worry though because the first chapter of this book is so gripping. It literally took me only less than ten pages to have me on the edge and completely in love with the whole premise of this book.
The premise of this story centers around this king wanting to take revenge on the Bridge Kingdom for causing famine to slowly kill and rot away his people. So naturally, he gathers all 12 of his daughters, isolates them in the middle of nowhere, and trains them to be seductress assassin spies. After their training comes to an end, one of these lucky 12 half sisters gets to be sent off to be married to the king of the Bridge Kingdom and win back their honor and power. Oh, and the king of the Bridge Kingdom is known to be a ruthless and merciless tyrant like man.
I loved, loved, loved the romance in this book. The enemies to lovers trope was done so well and the slow burn was just so amazing. I think that one complaint that people may have for this book is that Aren trusted Lara too quickly and too much which seems problematic because she was basically raised and bred by his enemies but I personally didn’t mind it at all. Ironically, this problematic issue of main characters being way too trusting of their fellow sketchy companions is one of the reasons why I disliked “Serpent and Dove”. I felt that the relationship between the characters in “Serpent and Dove” was way too easy and fast. I didn’t feel this way about “The Bridge Kingdom” because the relationship wasn’t easy at all. There was a huge mess of politics and morality, a mess that created the most perfect tension ever. I also didn’t mind Aren’s trusting nature because it really speaks to his character.
Aren and Lara both want to bring peace and stability to their country but go about it in such different ways. I love the contrasting character profiles of Aren and Lara because it adds to the tumultuous political atmosphere perfectly. I thought Jensen’s way of writing and describing the two characters’ raw passion for their people, how much they sacrifice, and how far they are willing to go to protect their people made it real easy for us to love and get attached to the characters.
The world building in this book is one of my favorites, it was so atmospheric. This book mainly centered around a jungle setting full of islands surrounded by feisty oceans. The book transitioned from a desert setting to a jungle setting seamlessly. I loved reading about the jungle setting because it isn’t a setting that I encounter frequently. So many books feature forests, cities, or other landscapes but I personally haven’t read about a jungle like this. It felt like I was right there in the jungle while reading this book.
I loved the ending of the book. As I said before, this book isn’t that long but so much happened in this story line. Jensen’s writing style is so unique and brilliant, especially with the way she pulled everything together in the end. It’s like every plot line, every event that occurred in the plot, was one more hole the lace of the shoe could go through. And towards the end, everything tied up very nicely and the last twenty pages just yanked the shoe lace and everything came undone. I had an inkling of what was going to happen but I was still left screaming at the ending. It was a perfect mix of the tension building up and that dreadful feeling where you know something’s going to happen from all the hints and subtle things that were happening in the background of the main plot line.
There isn’t much I disliked about the book. While I did love how the ending turned out, I did feel that one tiny aspect of the conclusion felt a bit rushed? It’s hard to describe and go into detail without spoiling the entirety of the book. I’m personally not too bothered by it because I enjoyed the other 99% of the book way too much for this tiny reason to bring down my love for the book. The other thing that bothered me was a pet name that one of Lara’s teacher’s had for her. This grown, “wise man” called her a cockroach. A CoCkRoaCh. He’d literally call her… “my little cockroach”. I get why, but still… just no…no.
In conclusion, I love Aren, I love Lara, I love this book. It’s got an enemies to lovers, perfect those who are having Jude and Carden withdrawals, a bunch of politics and bad ass females.
I hope you guys pick this book up and enjoy it as much as I did! As always, these are just my opinions and what I personally thought of the book. If you read it, I’d love to know that you thought of it in the comments!
Have a nice day!