The Heart Principle
Anna Sun is a classically trained violinist whose YouTube performance has gone viral, and now, under the weight of a new recording contract, she cannot force herself to finish any piece she starts. When her longtime boyfriend announces that he wants an open relationship before they get engaged, Anna decides to try a one-night stand to spite him and meets Quan Diep on a dating app, a tattoo-covered, motorcycle-riding Vietnamese American who is far gentler than he looks and is recovering from his own medical crisis. What is supposed to be one night slowly becomes something neither of them can walk away from, and Anna's suppressed autism and caregiving exhaustion surface with her mother's illness. Helen Hoang's Kiss Quotient trilogy closer pairs explicit romance with unusually frank portraits of burnout and late-diagnosed autism.
Also by Helen Hoang
What you might want to know about The Heart Principle
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Violinist Anna Sun's career has stalled into autistic burnout after a viral YouTube performance, and her boyfriend's request for an open relationship sends her onto a hookup app. The man she matches with is Quan Diep, a tattooed startup founder dealing with his own diagnosis.
The Heart Principle is the third book in Helen Hoang's loose Kiss Quotient trilogy, after The Kiss Quotient and The Bride Test. Each book features a different couple in connected families.
Yes. The Heart Principle contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The romance is between a violinist and a leather-clad biker.
Yes. The Heart Principle contains explicit on-page romance scenes, around 4 out of 5 on the spice scale. The romance is between a violinist and a leather-clad biker.
The Heart Principle was written by Helen Hoang, published in 2021 by Penguin Publishing Group.
The Heart Principle is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Heart Principle takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
The Heart Principle is a standalone novel by Helen Hoang, not part of a series.
The Heart Principle is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
