King of Wrath: An Arranged Marriage Romance

Book Details

King of Wrath (2022) is a contemporary romance by Ana Huang. It is the first book of the ongoing Kings of Sin series (which includes King of Pride and King of Greed) and follows billionaire and CEO Dante Russo and jewelry heiress and luxury event planner Vivian Lau during the engagement period of their arranged marriage. Their marriage is arranged by Vivian’s father, Francis, who blackmails Dante into the marriage using photographic evidence of his brother Luca’s indiscretions, which could get him killed by an angry mafia don. The novel follows Dante’s pursuit of revenge on Francis and his and Vivian’s evolving relationship.

Major Themes

The novel explores Dante’s and Vivian’s journeys of personal growth via the themes of The Impact of Familial Pressures, Compromising Morality for Success, and Choosing Vulnerability Over Wrath.

Author Highlight

Ana Huang self-published this novel in 2022, and it became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller when it was published in paperback in 2023.

Content Warning

This source text discusses emotional abuse.

This guide uses the 2022 Ana Huang (self-published) Kindle e-book edition.

Plot Summary

At the opening of the novel, Vivian Lau, heiress to the Lau jewelry company, monitors the goings on at a party she planned in her role as a luxury event planner in New York City. She is called home to Boston by her father, Francis, where her parents inform her of her arranged marriage to Dante Russo, CEO of the Russo Corporation. Having expected such an arrangement and fearful of being disowned by her family if she refuses, Vivian reluctantly accepts the engagement. It is clear, however, that her fiancé, Dante, is not happy about the arrangement.

Dante’s perspective reveals that Francis has blackmailed Dante into the marriage and forbidden Dante from telling Vivian the truth. Francis arranged to have a photographer catch Dante’s brother, Luca, having sex with a woman named Maria, who is the niece of a famously vicious mafia don in Italy. Francis threatens to send the pictures to the don, which would likely lead to the don having Luca killed.

Dante gives into the blackmail, but he privately puts his own team on the task of finding every copy of the photo so that he can end the engagement. He also creates a plan for revenge: to take down Lau Jewels so that Francis loses everything. Dante protects Luca by forcing him to stay in New York, give up Maria, and learn responsibility by working for the company at one of its jewelry stores.

According to Francis’s demands, Vivian moves into Dante’s apartment within several weeks. Although at their first meeting, Dante had pinned Vivian down as an obedient and boring daughter, he discovers that she has fire and style which she does not reveal around her parents. She refuses to let Dante bully her, and their first few months together are rough. However, sexual tension builds, despite Dante’s attempts to be cold and dismissive with Vivian and Vivian’s irritation with Dante’s treatment. Their first true bonding moment comes after their engagement photos, when Dante’s surprising choice to eat street food opens up a conversation about their shared love for certain “cheap” foods and their families’ disdain for such things.

Meanwhile, Vivian’s ex-boyfriend, Heath, whom she had once thought she would marry but whom she gave up when her father threatened to disown her, reaches out again. His company is doing well, and he hopes to rekindle their relationship, thinking that her parents would accept him now. She tells him that she is engaged, but he finds her while he is in town and confronts her about what he suspects is an arranged marriage. She tells him that she thinks that Dante is not all that bad, and she asserts that she will not break the engagement.

Vivian and Dante continue to bond, surprising one another with things like their “awful” snack choices and finding a growing sense of ease. At a party at Valhalla, the elite club where Dante is a high-ranking member, Dante’s jealousy leads to their first sexual encounter. His feelings develop more when he flies home from a work trip early on hearing the news that Vivian was held at gunpoint during a robbery at one of his jewelry stores. In the aftermath, he reveals his caring side, bringing Vivian food and encouraging her to go to one of the company’s counselors. He also brutally beats the man in charge of the robbery before Dante’s team takes the criminals to the police.

During a trip to Bali where Vivian meets Dante’s parents, Dante’s parents and Luca notice how Dante now looks at Vivian, realizing that he has feelings for her. Dante and Vivian have another sexual encounter, but Dante stops them before they have sex, trying to avoid further complications before he takes down her father’s company. After the trip, Dante slowly begins to open up to her again, but when he takes food to her during lunch, he overhears Isabella, one of Vivian’s friends, talking about Heath, and he and Vivian argue.

While Dante is in D.C. to talk through the revenge plan with his friend Christian, Christian sends a text to Heath while pretending to be Vivian, asking him to meet her at Dante’s apartment. He does so out of petty revenge for Dante teasing him by flirting with his girlfriend. Dante rushes home and punches Heath, who has cornered Vivian and is trying to convince her to be with him. When Heath leaves, Vivian and Dante argue and then, in the heat of the moment, have sex. The next morning, they agree to renegotiate their engagement terms: Dante suggests that they share a bedroom, and Vivian suggests that Dante stop pulling away and that they go on weekly dates.

When the party planner for the most elite annual party in New York City, the Legacy Ball, is fired, Vivian’s connection to Dante’s “old money” family helps her land the position. She runs into several problems, including the original venue experiencing flooding, but Dante helps to resolve the issue by offering to convince the committee at Valhalla to let her use the venue.

Dante and Vivian go on several dates, sharing more about themselves and bonding. On one date, Vivian mentions her father’s obsession with the number eight, which is considered lucky in Chinese culture. Dante realizes that Francis must have made eight copies of the photos, meaning that he and Christian only need to find three more copies. Dante and Vivian fight again when he criticizes her for the way she lets her parents treat her, but they make up more quickly than before. While joining Dante on a business trip to Paris, Vivian realizes that she is in love, and Dante learns that Christian has found all eight copies of Francis’s photos and is ready to put into action their plan to destroy Francis’s company.

Dante gives Christian the go-ahead. He puts off telling Vivian the truth, knowing that he will lose her when he does. He knows that if he stays with her (even if she forgives him for destroying Lau Jewels), it will give Francis more leverage over him. He pulls away from Vivian emotionally. She learns the truth when she visits Dante in the office and overhears he and her father arguing, and she leaves, choosing to stay with her friend Sloane.

While she keeps busy with final preparations for the Legacy Ball, Dante wallows over losing her. Luca, with newfound maturity, helps Dante realize that he is in love with Vivian and that he should stop sacrificing his own happiness to take care of Luca and the Russo Corporation. Vivian confronts her father about the blackmail, but he is unrepentant. He asks her to use her relationship with Dante to get Dante to save Lau Jewels. When she refuses, Francis disowns her, calling her ungrateful and disobedient.

Dante shows up at the Legacy Ball, where rumors are circulating over Vivian’s missing engagement ring. He tells Vivian that he was wrong, that he loves her, and that he wants to make things work between them. Vivian refuses, claiming that it would not work, but he pursues her, meeting her at her favorite coffee shop. He pretends that they’ve never met so that they can have a fresh start and asks her for one date. Vivian agrees, and one date turns into three.

On the third date, Vivian’s sister, Agnes, asks her to visit her in Eldorra, Agnes’s husband’s home country, to talk to their mother and father. Dante encourages her to go so that she can get closure and offers to go with her for emotional support.

In Eldorra, Vivian’s mother asserts that Francis had no right to decide to disown Vivian. While they are being more honest, Vivian shares how her mother’s constant criticism has affected her, and her mother promises to try to improve. Francis, however, remains unrepentant, yelling at Vivian for being disobedient and ungrateful for everything that he has given her. She stands up for herself and tells him that he is no longer a parent she is proud to have.

That night, Vivian takes another step toward rebuilding her relationship with Dante. Although she still does not yet want to agree to his request that she move in again, they have sex, and she admits that she loves him.

In the penultimate chapter, they have reconciled and are on a pre-wedding vacation, having postponed their wedding by a month. Dante proposes again, this time with a ring belonging to his mother and grandmother, hoping to make up for how their relationship started. In the epilogue, they marry; Vivian’s father only attends as her mother’s guest, and her mother takes on all of the typical father of the bride duties. Vivian recognizes, as she and Dante steal a moment alone, that she has found a home.