Twisted Love – Ana Huang – Melissa Justine

I am going to be honest, the only reason I bought this book was that I bought the second one as I thought they were stand alone. Then I found out that they are interconnected. I knew if I liked the second one I would have been very upset for not reading the first one. So, I went out and I bought this one just to be sure. Here we are today.

The book in short
Alex Volkov is a devil blessed with the face of an angel and cursed with a past he can’t escape.
Driven by a tragedy that has haunted him for most of his life, his ruthless pursuits for success and vengeance leave little room for matters of the heart.
But when he’s forced to look after his best friend’s sister, he starts to feel something in his chest:
A crack.
A melt.
A fire that could end his world as he knew it.

Ava Chen is a free spirit trapped by nightmares of a childhood she can’t remember.
But despite her broken past, she’s never stopped seeing the beauty in the world…including the heart beneath the icy exterior of a man she shouldn’t want.
Her brother’s best friend.
Her neighbor.
Her savior and her downfall.
Theirs is a love that was never supposed to happen—but when it does, it unleashes secrets that could destroy them both…and everything they hold dear.
I got this information here.

My thoughts
I didn’t like this book at all, I find the brother’s best friend trope horrible to start with. Friends of your siblings for me are off limits. It gives me a serious ick. Looking back I have had this with a few stories that I didn’t enjoy it always comes back to this trope. I kept reading because I wanted to find out why others loved this so much but I didn’t find it anywhere in the story.

We meet Ava and Alex and she starts gushing about his fingers being hot the moment they are in each other’s presence. Then he tells her he doesn’t like her, and she then says that she doesn’t like him either. Not only in talking to him which is understandable but also in her head. When it is really clear she does like him. This girl is gaslighting herself out of her crush. Which is at the point where I’m telling myself it is all still fine. But then it gets worse. One of Ava’s friends is a princess of a ‘real’ European country I cannot deal with this the country of Elladora is as real as the country of Aldovia where they speak in British accents and have endless white Christmases. It’s such an American thing to have a random princess living her normal life in America. This is not real, a European country would never send their Prince or Princess to a random high school or college. The royal families make sure their children have a good education even the not-so-bright ones get into very prestigious boarding schools normal people would never be allowed in even when they achieve amazing grades. It’s a security thing more than anything. It takes me out of the story and I am debating why I wanted to read this series in the first place. I also wonder is this Alex guy a mafia boss? It’s unclear. All of it feels a bit ridiculous, this isn’t the most the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read but it sure feels like it.

Ava doesn’t remember her past and she has these violent dreams which are clearly her repressed trauma. Why isn’t she in therapy? She also never talked to her brother about how her mother killed herself it all feels very weird

The brother comes up so much that I keep getting reminded that Alex is Ava’s brother bff. They want each other but cannot because of the brother but that’s just not the case. Because being with someone is a choice, you can choose not to watch movies together and not slip into each other’s beds. You are adults you can simply say ‘You are not for me’. You can acknowledge to yourself that you like this person but you can also say “not today”. You can respect and love your brother enough not to sleep with his friends because he clearly says he is uncomfortable with that. But if you cannot do that, at least have the bravery to tell him before he accidentally finds out. The utter disrespect to this brother has my head shaking.

The spicy scenes though are why a lot of people love this book I think. The only thing they did for me was that they got me howling with laughter. They go all in with the pet names right away and it got me off guard. They go from 0 to 100 so quickly, it wasn’t ready. I can see how others love it don’t get me wrong but it wasn’t for me. This book contains severe trauma and erotic scenes. That’s it, that is the story. The trauma is very severe and it contains very deep repressed memories, murder, and attempted murder. This makes me question: What does this story want to be? To me, it feels a bit much. I think this author can write a really solid romantic erotica novel and a solid trauma-filled story but to combine it missed the mark for me. They fall from an erotic scene into information about the trauma and it’s not a very great combination to be. This story feels like one of those free ones you can get on Audible or those 0.99 Kindle unlimited stories. I mean this in the nicest way those stories are great. But that is not this, this sells for 8.99 it’s astonishing. It very much doesn’t feel worth that.

The final thing is minor but you are not allowed to carry pepper spray in the UK (in a lot of European countries actually). It is forbidden and will be taken out of your luggage at the airport. Carrying pepper spray carries a similar punishment to carrying an illegal firearm. For my American readers owning one of those is also prohibited. A small thing sure but it’s straight to jail for Ana if she is found out as if her life hasn’t been tragic enough already. I find mistakes like this in published works a great letdown as it does not take a lot of work to figure out if this is allowed.

Overall, the book wasn’t for me. If you loved it go right ahead but I think I shall give the rest of this series a miss. Except well… I still have the second one which I will read someday…