57 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangKing of Wrath: An Arranged Marriage Romance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Ana Huang
Bestselling author Ana Huang writes YA, New Adult, and contemporary romance novels. As the daughter of Chinese parents, Huang often features Asian American characters in her novels–Vivian and her family in King of Wrath are Chinese American. Her background in International Relations and her travels often inspire her to include beautiful destinations in her stories, including Bali in King of Wrath. She is best known for her Twisted series and for her alpha heroes and strong heroines. Huang often writes within the dark romance sub-genre, which is known for morally grey (and often brooding) male heroes, some elements of danger and angst, and explicit sex.
Huang has been writing since she was young, but she only began self-publishing her novels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The “BookTok” community on TikTok has played a major role in her marketing process, allowing her to gain a large following and tap into readers’ interests and desires for their reading experiences. When her Twisted series became a viral phenomenon, her books were picked up by Sourcebooks’ Bloom imprint in 2022.
Series Context: Kings of Sin
King of Wrath is the first book of the Kings of Sin series, in which the male hero of each novel is guilty of one of the seven deadly sins: wrath, pride, greed, sloth, envy, gluttony, and lust. In this series, Huang enters the subgenre of billionaire romances with extremely wealthy male (bachelor) protagonists, which includes novels as diverse as the Fifty Shades of Grey series and Pride and Prejudice (1813). Huang recognized that each of the seven deadly sins would fit well within the realm of the ultra-rich, and the subgenre brings with it the appeal of pure escapism as Huang aims for readers to live vicariously through these characters who can afford anything they want and embark on travel at the drop of a hat.
Huang emphasizes that, for her, devotion is a key element in creating desirable heroes. Even her morally gray characters are devoted to their love interests; they would never cheat, and they are unabashed in their love once they accept it. This is evident in the Kings of Sin series, as is the fulfillment of the fantasy of being wanted by someone who already has everything. The novels play on the trope of the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, although one of the later novels in the series, King of Sloth (2024), switches that dynamic to make the male protagonist the “sunshine” character and the female protagonist the “grumpy” character.
Each of the novels takes on heavy themes, including family trauma, blackmail, and more, which lend themselves to the “dark romance” subgenre. The use of such themes allows Huang to explore concepts like emotional growth, redemption, and healing.
Kai and Isabella have supporting roles as best friends of Dante and Vivian, respectively, in King of Wrath. In the second book of the Kings of Sin series, King of Pride, these two friends are the protagonists and romantic leads. King of Wrath reveals their first couple of meetings and the beginnings of their dynamic. Dominic and Alessandra are the leads of the third book, King of Greed, and they are also introduced in King of Wrath.
Genre Context: Romance and the Arranged Marriage Trope
Aside from its use of the billionaire romance trope, King of Wrath is an “arranged marriage” romance. In such romance novels, the two protagonists are forced to marry but eventually fall in love. This trope has been popularized in contemporary romances such as Danielle Lori’s The Sweetest Oblivion (2018) and Sophie Lark’s Brutal Birthright series. King of Wrath mingles the concept of an arranged marriage with its variation, a marriage of convenience. On the surface, in the eyes of everyone except Dante Russo and Francis Lau, the marriage between Dante and Vivian Lau is a marriage of convenience; although they emphasize that people of their class do not admit to such arrangements, they are common due to their ability to create familial and business alliances. But for Dante, the marriage is an arranged (or forced) one. His parents do not force him, as happens in historical romance arranged marriage novels; rather, he is blackmailed into marrying Vivian by her father, Francis, because Francis has photos of Dante’s brother that, if sent to a certain mafia don in Italy, would lead to his brother’s death. Dante agrees to marry Vivian to save his brother, but Huang alters the trope somewhat by having Dante devote himself to finding a way out of the marriage (along with finding a way to get revenge on Francis Lau). Instead of the characters falling in love while married, they fall in love while engaged. They unofficially break up when Vivian discovers that Dante was forced into the marriage, but Dante realizes that he cannot lose Vivian. They eventually reconcile and marry one another willingly.
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By Ana Huang
