As we’ve all seen, dystopian fiction has been making the ultimate comeback in recent years! And we at THP have been loving the surge of new titles on our radar, especially J. Elle‘s new dystopian romantasy, The Heart Trials!
The Heart Trials centers around a cutthroat competition where the winners earn highborn citizenship and the right to love. Rather than face execution, lowborn Axira Merreri enters the Tournament of Hearts, where she plots to make someone fall in love with her as she plans her escape. Things start to fall apart when real feelings for the Ethyrian prince get involved.
It’s the first book in a duology, and we already can’t wait for the sequel! Here are three of our favorite things about The Heart Trials by J. Elle!
Book Overview: The Heart Trials
Content warnings: death, death of family and loved ones, murder, graphic violence, gore, bodies/corpses, stabbing, drugging, fatal overdose, combat, serious injuries, weapons (Please read at your discretion!)
Summary: In Ethyria the highborn may love; the lowborn may only feel what the Benevolent allows.
Saltblood lowborn Axira Merreri survives the decaying districts by keeping her heart locked tight, couriering goods by day—and smuggling the ruler’s euphoric Heartfillers to the highborn by night. Until a drop goes wrong and her execution looms.
When she strikes a dangerous bargain to steal something from the Tournament of Hearts, a ruthless dating competition to gain highborn citizenship, she enters. Not for love. For freedom. But as the twisted allure of the competition turns deadly, an unexpected connection cracks her defenses, forcing her to confront a truth she fears: In a regime built on engineered happiness, the most dangerous weapon she has is her heart.
The Super Slow Burn
First, we have to talk about the forbidden romance between Axira and Prince Caelus. It’s the slow burn to end all slow burns. In this world, the lowborn are not allowed to touch each other, nor can they express any form of strong emotions. So when Axira enters the Tournament of Hearts, she must somehow make someone fall in love with her despite having never felt it before. She and the prince work together to make it to the end of the competition. But every lingering gaze, every gentle touch holds so much more weight than either of them expected. We held our breaths at every moment of contact. The tension was so thick between the two of them that we weren’t sure we were supposed to be reading.
Jaw-Dropping Twists
One thing about The Heart Trials: just when we thought we could predict what happened next, we were completely wrong. That made all the twists even more shocking. The contestants risk their lives in each of the three trials. They make alliances that aren’t easy to break. Then Axira learns the true purpose of the competition. And we braced ourselves during each elimination round to see who would survive these perilous challenges. Even then, the Benevolent and his Mercyenforcers would try and tilt the scales against Prince Caelus. The final challenge had our hearts racing as we prepared for the worst possible result. And we’re still trying to recover from the shock.
Love Becomes Resistance
Finally, another one of our favorite things about The Heart Trials is its overarching theme of using love as a form of resistance. The lowborn society must suppress their emotions to the point where any display of affection or feelings come with a punishment. They receive mandatory doses of Heartfillers for their happiness, thus growing reliant on the short-term euphoria that they bring. Despite this system and social conditioning, Axira cares. She cares so much about the people in the orphanage. And she’d sacrifice everything to to get everyone out of Ethyria. The highborn leaders know that the only way they can stay in power is to control the lowborn and their sense of love. But as Axira demonstrates, true love can topple any institution and conquer any enemy.
What a phenomenal opener for a dystopian duology! J. Elle’s The Heart Trials shows us that love—fierce, unyielding, true love—is the key to all of life’s challenges. We only need to make room for it.
The Heart Trials by J. Elle comes out September 1st, and you can order a copy of it here!
What do you think of J. Elle’s new dystopian duology? Are you planning to read The Heart Trials? Let us know on Twitter! You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram!
Want to hear some of our audiobook recommendations? Here’s the latest!
