SUMMARY

He has a heart of ice… but for her, he’d burn the world.

A diverse new adult steamy romance from TikTok sensation and USA Today bestselling author Ana Huang.

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.

Twisted Love is a contemporary brother’s best friend/grumpy sunshine romance. It’s book one in the Twisted series but can be read as a standalone.

Image and summary from Goodreads.

REVIEW

I’m a bit behind on my reviews of books that I’ve read since March this year so I’ll do my best to get everything I’ve read since my last review posted. This was read in March of this year so this is how behind I am 😅

This is the first Ana Huang book that I’ve ever read – well this was an audiobook listen for me. I really enjoyed her writing and the voice actors on the audiobook really did a good job. This took me a day to listen to then entire audiobook so it was pretty quick. It didn’t take long to get into the audiobook like some others that I’ve listened to and I just had my headphones on while doing housework and multitasked. It was easy to follow along with what was happening in the story.

This is the first book in Ana Huang’s Twisted series with 3 others that follow different characters. This can be read as a standalone or part of the series depending on how you wish to read this. 

This book follows a few tropes such as enemies to lovers, grumpy x sunshine and brothers best friend with Ava and Alex. Both Ava and Alex have heavy emotional baggage with past childhood experiences from tragedy to abandonment. Both of the characters are emotionally complex but are the total opposites. Ava is a sweet, warm, emotionally opened, sunshine woman while Alex is the grumpy, cold, calculated, brooding and emotionally shut off man with a need for control. 

This story starts off when Ava’s brother Josh is going overseas for work and Alex steps in to watch over Ava while a little reluctantly at first. Ava and Alex both have differences and Huang does a great job of building up the chemistry between them with tension and gradually evolving their relationship. It didn’t feel forced or rushed and I enjoyed the build up. 

I really enjoyed getting to see the both Ava and Alex confront their past issues and helping each other to deal with them. Alex did go of on a vengeful arc which I can understand after witnessing his family be killed and confronting his family’s killer but he learns to let go of his obsession and allow love and vulnerability to come into his life with Ava. 

This book has a strong emotional arc with lots of trust building, healing and letting go of the past which is what both characters really needed to work on. This was done really well and also didn’t feel as rushed as the characters leant on each other through a lot of difficult moments. 

Now towards the end of the book, it did feel a little over the top on the dramatics but it did lead to a good conclusion for the book and it did set up a bit of backstory for the second book in the Twisted series. 

All in all I gave it a 4 star rating and will probably read the second book Twisted Games later this year.

-Rachelle

I’m on Instagram at @rachellesbookshelf