Twisted Love

I picked up Twisted Love because I kept hearing it named as the start of the Twisted series and as the book that made Ana Huang a staple in new adult romance. It came out in 2021 from Bloom Books, runs 352 pages, and it promises a specific fantasy. Grumpy billionaire, sunshine heroine, brother's best friend, forced proximity in a big city. I went in expecting something light with heat. What I got was heavier than the cover suggests, with childhood trauma, nightmares, revenge plans, and a lot of explicit scenes. I finished it fast, not because every part worked, but because Ava and Alex keep pulling at each other and you want to see who gives in first.

Ava Chen is twenty two, sweet, stubborn, and trying to live freely after a childhood that taught her to be afraid. She studies art history and photography, loves ice cream and rainy playlists, wears her heart where people can see it. She lives in Washington DC with her best friend Bridget, who is practical and loyal, and she adores her older brother Josh Chen, a medical student bound for a prestigious program. Josh is protective to the point of bossy. He loves Ava fiercely, but he also tries to manage her dating life, her schedule, her safety. Ava loves him back and still wants room to breathe.

Alex Volkov is thirtyish, tall, cold eyed, rich from finance and real estate, best friend to Josh since college. He wears tailored suits, speaks little, remembers everything. People at work fear him. Josh trusts him completely, which is why Josh asks Alex to watch over Ava when Josh leaves for Central America for a medical placement. Alex moves in next door in the same upscale building and takes the job seriously. He installs better locks. He drives her to class. He glares at any man who looks too long. From the first chapters the tension is clear. Ava teases. Alex deflects. Both notice everything about the other. The arrangement is supposed to be practical. It becomes personal within weeks.

The brother leaves and the neighbor watches

The setup moves quickly. Josh gets an opportunity he cannot refuse, a year long medical rotation that will make his career. He worries about leaving Ava alone in the city. Ava insists she is fine. She has Bridget, she has class, she has a part time rhythm. Josh does not believe her, partly because Ava has a history of sleepwalking and nightmares he does not fully understand, partly because he is just wired to guard her. He calls Alex, his closest friend, the man who once saved his future with money and advice, and asks for a favor. Keep an eye on her. Do not let anyone hurt her. Alex agrees, because Josh is the only person he calls brother.

Alex takes over with unsettling efficiency. He learns Ava's class schedule. He meets Bridget and charms her just enough to be allowed close. He gives Ava his number and tells her to call for anything. Ava finds him intimidating and magnetic both. He is rude in elevators. He is gentle when she drops her camera bag. He remembers she likes strawberry ice cream. He fixes a leak in her apartment without being asked. Bridget warns Ava that Alex looks at her like a problem he wants to solve by owning it. Ava laughs it off, but she writes about him in her journal and takes photos of empty streets when she cannot sleep.

What works here is proximity. Shared hallways, shared rides, late nights when Ava cannot sleep and Alex is still working. Huang writes DC as clean streets, glass buildings, expensive restaurants, and quiet apartments with too much space. Ava brings warmth into Alex's gray rooms. She leaves a scarf on his couch. She plays music while she cooks. He pretends to be annoyed and keeps the scarf. The early banter is fun. She calls him grumpy. He calls her troublesome. I liked Ava in these chapters. She is kind without being naive. She notices when Alex goes still at a sudden noise. She asks if he sleeps. He lies and says yes.

London rain and old photographs

Ava's past sits under everything. As a child, she survived a fire that killed her parents. She was pulled out by neighbors while smoke filled the stairs. Josh, a few years older, survived too and has carried guilt since, as if being older meant he should have prevented it. Ava has gaps in her memory from that night. She remembers heat, shouting, a door that would not open. She has nightmares where she smells smoke. She sleepwalks sometimes. She keeps old photographs in a box and looks at them when she misses her mom and dad. Bridget knows the outlines. Josh knows more than he tells. Ava wants the full truth but is afraid of what it will change.

The London section deepens that thread. Ava gets a chance to study abroad in London for a photography program, with old streets, museums, gray skies, and a host family setup that feels safe. Bridget encourages her. Josh worries and then agrees because he wants her to grow. Alex hates the idea because London puts Ava out of his control, but he flies out for work reasons that are not only work. In London, Ava takes pictures of doors and windows and the Thames at dusk. She makes new friends. She visits galleries. She starts to feel capable away from her brother. Alex shows up with gifts and rules. Stay where he can reach her. Text when she lands. Do not walk alone at night. She pushes back. He pulls closer.

London also gives Huang room for the couple to act like a couple without Josh watching. They tour markets. They argue about modern art. Alex buys her film for her camera. Ava gets him to smile in a photo and teases him when he tries to delete it. There is a gala scene with dresses and stares where Alex is openly possessive, keeping his hand on her back and warning off a smooth classmate who asks Ava to dance. Ava likes being claimed in public more than she admits, which is part of the fantasy Huang is selling. I found these chapters sweet and a little tense, because Ava's growing independence sits next to Alex's growing need to keep her near. Both cannot win at once.

Nightmares, swimming, and a fire that never left

Back in DC, Ava's nightmares get worse. She wakes crying. She finds herself in the hallway with no memory of getting up. Bridget sits with her. Alex installs a nightlight without comment and pretends it was building maintenance. He learns she likes to swim to calm down, so he gets her access to a private pool where she can do laps early in the morning. Swimming scenes become their quiet language. He times her. She splashes him. For a man who controls everything, he is surprisingly patient in water.

Huang reveals pieces of Alex's past in parallel. Alex grew up in Ukraine and then moved with family, lost people violently, learned that love makes you weak and that power keeps you safe. He watched his father destroy lives. He watched his mother suffer. He decided as a boy that he would never be helpless again. He built himself through study, fighting, and money, and he made a list of men to ruin. His uncle Ivan is at the center of that hate. Alex keeps files, photos, bank records. He tells himself revenge is the only thing that matters. Then Ava starts to matter more, and he hates that too.

The fire that killed Ava's parents connects to this revenge in a way I will not spoil fully here, except to say Ava learns that her memory of that night is incomplete and that people she trusts chose what to tell her. When the truth comes, it lands hard. She remembers a locked door, a smell of gasoline, a voice she thought was a dream. Josh breaks down. Bridget holds her. Alex stands in the doorway looking guilty in a way Ava has never seen. The reveal reframes Josh's overprotection. He seemed bossy on the surface. Underneath he was scared she would learn and leave. It also reframes Alex's watchfulness. He seemed to guard a friend's sister. In truth he was guarding a link to his own plan. I thought this twist was effective melodrama. It is big and soapy, but Huang plants clues early with the photographs, the gaps, the way Josh changes the subject whenever Ava asks about the investigation.

Revenge with a soft middle

Alex's revenge plot drives the middle and late book. On the surface he is a CEO who buys buildings and ruins competitors. Underneath he is hunting the men who hurt his family, using shell companies, blackmail, and staged accidents. He meets contacts in parking garages. He keeps a second phone. He lies to Josh with a straight face. He tells Ava he works late. Some of this is fun in a thriller way. Alex outsmarts a boardroom. Alex traps a smug executive with a recording. Some of it is cold. He enjoys making enemies beg. He keeps score.

What complicates it is Ava. Alex starts to soften in spite of himself. He cooks for her when she is sick. He carries her camera bag without being asked. He waits outside her classroom in rain. He buys her a new lens after hers cracks. He attends her small gallery showing with Bridget and Josh and stands in the back looking proud and uncomfortable. His assistant sees the change and warns him. His enemies see it too, which puts Ava in danger. Huang makes the point clearly. A man who lives for revenge cannot keep a sunshine woman safe without changing his life. Alex tries to have both. He doubles security while doubling lies.

The explicit scenes ramp up here and they are frequent. Huang writes steam in direct language with a lot of focus on control, praise, and possession. Alex tells Ava she is his. Ava tells him to prove it. Doors lock. Clothes come off fast. For readers who want heat, there is plenty. For readers who want plot, the repetition can drag. I skimmed two scenes that felt like copies with different furniture. The book is also possessive in a way that will bother some readers. Alex tracks Ava's phone, threatens men who flirt with her, tells her what to wear to events for safety that is also about marking territory. Ava pushes back sometimes and gives in other times. If you like alpha heroes who soften only for one woman, this will work. If you want equal partnership from page one, it will grate.

Falling apart in public

The breakup, when it comes, is loud. Ava learns the full extent of Alex's lies, including how her family fire ties to his revenge and how long he watched her before they met. She feels used, even though she believes he loves her now. Josh learns Alex kept secrets and punches him in a hallway that smells like antiseptic and old coffee. Bridget tries to mediate and then steps back because Ava needs to decide alone. Ava moves out of the shared building rhythm. She stays with Bridget. She throws herself into photography, printing large black and white shots of London doors and DC streets, trying to see her life clearly.

Alex unravels in a controlled way. He drinks more. He works more. He ruins Ivan faster and more brutally, as if finishing the list will fill the hole. It does not. He shows up where Ava shows work. He leaves flowers without a card. He apologizes badly at first, with money and protection, which Ava rejects. Then he apologizes better, with truth. He tells her everything about his parents, his uncle, the files, the nights he sat outside her building before Josh asked him to watch her. He does not excuse it. He says he was wrong and that he will walk away if she wants. That choice, to give Ava power over the ending, is the first fully unselfish thing he does.

The reunion is classic romance. A gallery event, a rainstorm, a speech that is a little too perfect. Josh gives reluctant blessing after seeing Alex take a risk that costs him money and pride. Bridget cries. Ava shows a photo series about home and fire and rebuilding, and the crowd gets quiet. Alex stands in front of one print for a long time. They agree to try again with rules that are healthier. No tracking without consent. No lies about work. Therapy mentioned, not mocked. I liked that Huang gestures toward growth even if she resolves it fast. The epilogue jumps to a steadier future with the larger friend group introduced, setting up Bridget, Jules, and Stella for the next books. It feels like a family forming, which is the real hook for the series.

What works and what wears thin

What works is Ava. She is warm, creative, funny about small things, and braver than the men around her think. Her photography gives the book eyes. She notices light on brick, hands on doors, the way London looks soft in rain and DC looks hard at noon. Her friendship with Bridget feels real, full of late night talks and honest warnings. Josh as a brother feels real too, loving and overbearing and sorry. Alex as a fantasy works if you accept the premise. He is competent, generous in private, broken in ways the plot explains. The revenge thread adds momentum that a simple roommates story would lack, and the fire reveal ties the couple's pasts together instead of leaving them as separate sad stories.

What wears thin is repetition and control framed as care. The steam scenes use similar beats and similar dirty talk, and after the third long scene the heat stops advancing character. Alex's possessiveness is constant. He orders, forbids, tracks, threatens. Ava calls it out, then melts when he is tender after. That cycle repeats. Some readers will find it hot. I found it tiring by the last third and wanted more scenes like the pool mornings or the gallery talks where they meet as equals. The London chapters also slow the middle with travel detail that does not change much. The book could lose thirty pages of shopping, galas, and repeated jealousy and be stronger. Still, as the first in the Twisted series, it does its job. It pairs a grumpy billionaire with a sunshine artist, gives them a shared wound, burns the lies down, and leaves a friend group you want to follow. If you want sweet heat with dark edges and do not mind an alpha who learns slowly, you will finish fast and reach for the next one.