She’s his opposite in every way…and the greatest temptation he’s ever known.

Reserved, controlled, and proper to a fault, Kai Young has neither the time nor inclination for chaos—and Isabella, with her purple hair and inappropriate jokes, is chaos personified.

With a crucial CEO vote looming and a media empire at stake, the billionaire heir can’t afford the distraction she brings.

Isabella is everything he shouldn’t want, but with every look and every touch, he’s tempted to break all his rules…and claim her as his own.

***

Bold, impulsive, and full of life, Isabella Valencia has never met a party she doesn’t like or a man she couldn’t charm…except for Kai Young.

It shouldn’t matter. He’s not her type—the man translates classics into Latin for fun, and his membership at the exclusive club where she bartends means he’s strictly off limits.

But she can’t deny that, beneath his cool exterior, is a man who could make her melt with just a touch.

No matter how hard they try, they can’t resist giving into their forbidden desires.

Even if it costs them everything.

Genre: Romance Fiction

Tropes:

• Billionaire 

• Forbidden Romance 

• Opposites Attract 

My Thoughts:

King of Pride is the second book of the King of Sin Series by Ana Huang and also the second series I have read by Ana. 

My first venture into reading books by Ana Huang was the Twisted Series, which I liked reading. The twisted series followed a group of 4 college girls in the same friendship circle, navigating their careers and love life. The twisted series consists of:

Twisted Love – A romance between the brothers billionaire best friend with forced proximity between a grumpy and sunshine character. 

Twisted Games – An age gap, forbidden romance between a princess and her bodyguard with forced proximity. 

Twisted Hate – An enemies to lovers romance between best friend’s brother with forced proximity. 

Twisted Lies – A forced proximity and fake dating romance between a billionaire and influencer.

The King of Sin series is themed around the 7 deadly sins, following billionaires and providing steamy romances. 

King of Wrath – A forced proximity, arranged marriage romance between a billionaire and heiress where their relationship progresses from dislike to like. 

King of Pride – A forbidden romance of opposites attract between a billionaire and employee.

When it came to reading book number two of the King of Sins series; King of Pride, I was very unmotivated due to many reasons. The main reason was being that this was potentially my last physical book. Normally, I love reading a physical book – there’s nothing quite like it, but I really struggled with motivation to read this one. I’m unsure whether it was because it was my last time experiencing a physical book and I wanted to savour it, preference to reading on a device and being able to read in any position, or if it was just down to being in a slight book slump.

King of Pride follows female protagonist Isabella, an employee of a members only club called Valhalla, who is also writing her first manuscript. It also follows male protagonist Kai, a British-Asian billionaire who’s awaiting the upcoming vote for CEO of his family’s business. With Isabella being an employee of Valhalla and Kai being a frequent visitor of the club, the two are forbidden from forming a relationship as it is forbidden for employees and members to mix. As Isabella works for Valhalla and Kai being a frequent customer, the two unintentionally explore each other through innocent conversations, which leads to them developing feelings and subsequently forming a relationship in secret.

I thought the storyline was extremely slow and not in a slow burn type of slow. It just felt like nothing was happening through the book and most chapters felt like fillers. I found this very hard to follow and to be motivated to continue; especially with my added lack of motivation and uninterest to read. I found that in the beginning, I was only reading between 3-5 chapters before I was really struggling to continue. I don't mean that in a *struggling to reads so will DNF* type of struggling. I just found my attention span was lacking because the storyline was lacking - I wasn't hooked! However, I did feel that the middle started to pick up in terms of their relationship and the activities they did togetehr. This part of the book, I found I was reading more than the average 3-5 chapters I'd previously been reading - but still not enough chapters to be considered hooked. This didn't last long, as I found that after the middle part of the story, it began to resume the slow pace. Don't get me wrong, there were some twists I didn't see coming. Like the revelation of Isabelle's family background or the story of her previous relationship. I feel like the ending was slightly rushed and just in general, was missing something.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, seeing as I enjoyed the first story of the King of Sins series, but it just wasn't there. I've been reading reviews from GoodReads to see whether my feelings for the book are mutual to others and I was surprised to see that people had the same thoughts as me - not many, but there were some!

I did enjoy reading Isabelle and Kai's story and at times, was enjoying the happy and cute moments they shared. I think my lack of enjoyment for their story probably being that they had a healthy relationship and the male protagonist wasn't a grumpy billionaire. I think in terms of the billionaire genre, I much prefer grumpy ones who initially don't like the female protagonist, but grow to have the "touch her and you die" mindset.

One thing I do like about Ana's Work, is how her two series (Twisted and King of Sins) are interconnected and feature the appearance or mention of characters from other series. I also like that there's hints and not-so-subtle nods to whose character will be next in the series. My predictions for the next books are that:

Ale and Dominic will be next and will have a storyline that consists of a broken marriage that transforms following a scare that the male protagonist experiences, which makes him realise his love for the female protagonist.

Sloane will have a book that focuses on her falling for her moody client, Xavier Castillo whilst she tries to transform his image. I'm suspected a fake dating romance between the pair, where they fall in love along the way.

aaand finally, I think grumpy ol' Vuk Markovic who is a grumpy closed off billionaire, will have a book where he finds his sunshine female protagonist who he denies liking, but will have a "touch her and you die" mindest.

Overall, I think my lack of interest was mainly due to personal factors. The day I finished the book I was battling a headache and impending flu, so it felt more like a chore than a hobby. I was also behind my reading schedule - I like to set out which books to read each month and King of Pride was a book I was supposed to read in September, but I procrastinated it until now. This has now put me in stress mode for the books I was supposed to read in October - a domino effect.

I think that had the circumstances had been different, I would've enjoyed it - so maybe I'll revisit it in the future and give it a fairer try.

My Rating:.5