Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Bridge Kingdom

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

116 reviews

jennipea382's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

readbyjaimes's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was fairly disappointing for me. I had high expectations and I'm just not sure if this author's writing style is for me. It always felt like a trudge to read and I would take frequent breaks because it just didn't flow well in my brain. I also don't like the third-act conflict. It felt really cheap and honestly just really stupid. Made me so annoyed that I just skimmed the last 50 pages.

I will say that I did like some parts and it wasn't bad all the time. I just think this author is not for me and that's okay.

Content Warnings

ladybug12793's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

pleasantly surprised

Can we take a moment and just admire the cover art? It’s absolutely beautiful. I didn’t have high hopes for this book because I didn’t really like her other book, “A Fate Inked in Blood.” I enjoyed this though. The plot development is pretty obvious even early on, but that didn’t bother me.

2 🌶️

Content Warnings

wardenred's review against another edition

4.0

emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“You always look like you want to kill someone,” he remarked. “Possibly me.”

Hello, new fun source of mixed feelings! I liked parts of this book so much, but then there were entire chapters that made me struggle to stay focus—always an interesting combination.

At its heart, this is the sort of enemies-to-lovers + arranged marriage story where the MC marries an alleged villain for the sake of her country and then discovers that her husband is in fact *not* the villain of the story. It’s also far more worldbuilding-heavy than an average romantasy, I feel, with a lot of politics that are handled in really cool, realistic ways. It is rare that I see the links between climate, trade, and warfare in the context of foreign relations explored so well outside of history- or politics-focused non-fiction. Alongside the evocative descriptions of jungles and snakes, this made the setting feel very real. I also generally liked the geography of this world, with the continents connected with a huge bridge and how control over this bridge is a mixed blessing for a specific country.

Much as I’m happy to sing praises to the worldbuilding itself, however, I have problems with how it’s delivered and how it’s interwoven with the central relationship plot thread. The more world-focused bits are almost universally dense, infodump-y, and often involve stuff happening elsewhere and the characters talking/reminiscing about it later. Meanwhile, Lara and Aren’s interactions where they get to know each other and eventually catch feelings are all pretty action-y, emotional, full of banter and cool cinematic moments. Even though their relationship very much exists in the context of the world’s politics (and their marriage, in turn, directly affects the political plot/is a part of it), this duality of approaches kept creating that “am I actually reading two separate books?” feeling. It also sometimes just felt jarring—kind of like, imagine reading a contemporary romance, and you’re all invested in the relationship, and then suddenly there’s a transcript of the daily news the characters watch together to get caught up on the world’s affairs, followed by a summary of a New York Times or Reuters analytical piece about one of the ongoing conflicts around the globe. This felt like that, but fantasy.

As far as the romance is concerned, I really enjoyed the development of it. It’s a slow burn, and there’s all that extra tension around Lara concealing the fact that she’s a spy and Aren being pretty sure she’s probably a spy. The start was rocky, the subsequent developments grew on me fast, and I think they complement each other really well as people. I liked all the subtle comparing and contrasting between them, and how the secondary characters surrounding Aren all helped, with their reactions and interactions with him, show who he is as a person. His care for his desire to create a better future for his people even when he was told he’s being too idealistic really resonated with me.

Lara, for her part, absolutely captured my heart at the beginning of the book, showing herself as badass, capable, courageous, and smart. That first scene immediately had me invested in her journey. Unfortunately, later on that perception kind of faltered, because at key points of the plot she kept stubbornly refusing to display those qualities to recognize what was actually happening. She started off openly showcasing a degree of defiance to her father and a complete willingness to accept that he’s capable of heinous things, but then as soon as she was away from him, she was constantly like, “No, he wouldn’t lie, he cares for his people, etc.” And I kind of get how this can co-exist with what she shows early on: indoctrination, trauma, etc would do that. But those scenes aren’t written as that specific brand of mental gymnastics at all, so this is my assumption of what might have been happening there, not anything the book explicitly told or showed me. Instead, Lara’s behavior felt like she suddenly lost half of her abilities and experience whenever that one specific subject came up, making the stalling for the reveal feel artificial.

The ending in the book, in many ways, was a punch in the gut. I really liked how the final twist was handled, and the way it echoed the beginning of the book and made it so that the first choice the MC made in the book led very directly to the final problem. I liked how it came right when things were settling down, too, making me feel like we’re in the “wrapping up the final threads” territory while wondering why there were a bit too many pages left—would the final part end up dragging? OH NO, THE OPPOSITE. With a cliffhanger like that, I’ll be definitely picking up the next book.

Content Warnings

stuffed_with_books's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was a compelling read, with rich characters and a satisfying romance. The dual POV was used well in framing the story and the world building made it easy to get lost in the story.

Content Warnings

tatumfrench's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging hopeful slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book felt really slow paced for the first about 60% of it, but then really sped up for the end 40%. Very adventurous and fun once you take in the world and understand the relationships between people and kingdoms!

Content Warnings

july17th's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Content Warnings

haleydeppert's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

All I can say is: WOW. I picked up this book after absolutely DEVOURING A Fate Inked in Blood. Let’s just say… I think I have found my new favorite author. From the very first page, I was hooked on this book! The very idea of a Bridge Kingdom is extremely unique and I loved escaping into this world! This book was almost perfection, but I do have one complaint. Sorry, I must speak my truth. For an obvious romantasy, I did feel that the romance aspect was lacking in some ways. I love a good slow burn but I feel as if the main love interests did not speak to each other enough. Like literally. Obviously, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for them to recognize their feelings, but the romance just felt underdeveloped. Undercooked, if you will. Kinda like doughy donuts. As in, they still taste good or have good flavor, but something just isn’t quite right. LOL, anyways… The plot of this book made up for this tenfold! No matter how long I talk about undercooked pastries, that will not take away from the fact that this book is a 5 star read for me! I cannot wait to get my hands on the second book!

Spice rating: 1.5/5 🌶️ (Only about one spicy scene in total but it was extremely short-lived. Give me more detail, dammit!)

Content Warnings

earlgreyjedi's review

4.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Follow Lara as she infiltrates the bridge kingdom and attempts to save her own. After being trained from the age of five to be an assassin, Lara still has kindness and compassion in her, mostly motivated to protect her sisters and her people. As she gets to know the people of the bridge kingdom, she begins to realize all she knew may not be entirely correct. This was a tense story with lots of storms, a dash of spice, and a lot of heartbreak.

I think one of my biggest pet peeves about the ruthless assassin trope is that they somehow aren’t smart enough to question the hands that feed them? Like why did she believe her father, who planned on murdering all her sisters who she cared about, was a totally trustworthy man and definitely not a total power-hungry psychopath? Other than that, which could potentially be explained away by her repeated brainwashing, this story was very compelling and the voice acting was good too

Side note: story does contain the “who did this to you?” trope, which I love 😁

Content Warnings

sandonat's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The beginning was so good! You jump in so fast and the characters start out so strong. The pacing of the love story was not my favorite. I feel like we could have used a few more beats in the lead up and some beats after the initial intimate moment. It felt like they skipped through some really important moments at the end. I was anticipating getting to see more of what happened rather than a summary of events that occurred. Some of the writing was too descriptive for me as well - I don’t really care that that much about the politics and the scenery. I was really nervous for the twist though- I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Content Warnings

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