The Bride Test by Helen Hoang is out now! This is the much-anticipated sequel to The Kiss Quotient, and it doesn’t disappoint! Read our 5 STAR review!
I adored The Kiss Quotient, and I re-read it in January because it was that good! You can read my review HERE! The Bride Test is just as great, but it’s also completely different from the first novel in the series. Michael and Stella swept you off your feet in The Kiss Quotient. Khai and Esme will make you see that a HEA has many different layers in The Bride Test.
{SPOILERS AHEAD!}
Family was important in the first novel as well, but familial love is an even bigger part of this story. Esme lives in Vietnam with her mother, grandmother, and young daughter. The man that she had her child with was engaged and is now married. He and his wife would also like to take the little girl to be their own since they found out they can’t have children of their own. Esme refuses. She works in a hotel, cleaning, and trying to make money to support her small family.
When an opportunity presents itself to come to the United States and try to seduce a young man into marriage, she hesitates. She doesn’t want to trick anyone into marriage, but she also doesn’t want to turn away a chance at a bright future for her child. Her mother tells her to go, too. Any way out is better than no way.
Esme decides that she’s going to make this man fall in love with her, and she’s going to do it so that her daughter can have a solid future.
I feel Esme’s desperation in this book. I understand that, even when she thinks things are over for her and Khai, she keeps moving forward to secure her daughter a better life. She doesn’t need a happily ever after if she can find some way for her child to escape the cycle she’s found herself in.
In the end, Esme takes her future in her own hands, and I was so proud of her!
On the flip side, The Bride Test shows you Khai’s feelings so well. You understand why he believes he’s incapable of love, and you sense his family’s desperation to help him see that it’s not true. Khai feels like he can care for Esme and make sure she’s safe an provided for, but beyond that, he makes no promises. I appreciate that he doesn’t lie because he thinks it’s what everyone thinks he should say.
These two build a unique romance that grows and deepens throughout the novel. Their characters are so fully developed and genuine. The side characters in the novel aren’t background, but there to move the story along and offer insight into situations. The Bride Test provides the perfect HEA for the characters involved, and I was completely satisfied with the ending.
You can’t go wrong reading a Helen Hoang novel. Her words are some of my favorites.
Many thanks to Berkley Romance for an advanced copy of the novel!