Thursday, August 21, 2025

A Bright Heart review


 

Book: A Bright Heart

Author: Kate Chenli

Pages: 432

Date(s) Read: June 17th, 2025 to August 5th, 2025

Date Published: October 17th, 2025

Genre: asian-fiction, fantasy, time-travel, bipoc-main-characters, books-read-2024, books-read-2025

Rating: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Writing style: 5/5

Story: 4/5

Ending:  5/5

Cover: 4/5 (special edition)

Format: Hardcover (Faecrate edition)

Date Bought: 2025

Book Cost: $30.00 


When I first read A Bright Heart I gave it three stars and thought the last third of the book was a mess. After my reread of it I have no idea what I was thinking. This is a great book, it's very fast paced, action packed, and romance filled.

 

In A Bright Heart Mingshin is betrayed by her lover Ren. Ren jails her and kills so he can marry her cousin Aylin. As Minghsin lay dying she prays for a second chance. Her prayers are answered and she wakes up two years before her death and vows to do things right this time.

 

Mingshin is a lovable, intuitive and intelligent female lead you will always side with. There's never a moment in this book you won't be cheering for her. The male love interest, Jieh, is affable and good looking. He's not your typical brooding, overly possessive male love interest. He actually values Mingshin for her mind and see's her as a person rather than an object to possess.

 

I was overly harsh when I read this the first time. I'm not sure why, but on rereading this in preparation to read the second book, I found myself glued to the pages, even knowing the bigger points of the plot because I had read it the previous year. If you like asian fantasy worlds, dramatic political intrigue, family drama, and a love story with depth, you will appreciate A Bright Heart.



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