Two of my favorite love tropes is brother’s best friend and enemies to lovers. This is probably because I had crushes on many of my brother’s friends growing up. Combining both of those beloved tropes of mine in one novel is a recipe for an amazing story — or so you would think.

“Twisted Love” by Ana Huang is about a girl named Ava Chen who has a positive, cheery presence and sees the good in everything. Alex Volkov is quite the opposite of that. Ava lives next door to her protective older brother, Josh, and while he goes out of the country, he has Alex keep an eye on her by moving into his house next door to Ava. The pair are forced to be around each other, which starts to spark feelings. 

Alex is a super intense individual. He is one of the heads of this corporate business called The Archer Group and hates having to babysit Ava. Ava is convinced that he is not capable of showing any emotions because of how stone cold his personality is. She does a few tests on him when they are around each other to see if he can show emotions. All seems to fail until one night Ava’s ex, Liam, returns and grabs her forcefully while the two are arguing. Alex beats the guy up. 

Even though Alex is the textbook definition of possessive, he is completely loyal to the people he loves. This loyalty gets complicated, but remains intact, on his path to revenge. He originally befriended Josh to get close to Michael (Ava and Josh’s toxic father and the Volkov family’s business rival), because he believes that Michael is responsible for killing his family. He was not expecting to fall in love with Michael’s daughter. Alex is forced to tell Ava that he never loved her and that everything between them was fake to protect her life. 

This whole corporate, hostage, revenge thing felt a bit mafia boss-like, which I did not hate entirely. At some parts, I was not enjoying it because Alex was too untouchable. There was not a moment where I was worried for his safety no matter how many guns were pointed at him. The thought of him dying did not even cross my mind. I did, however, think that Ava would be killed to get to Alex. 

For what the book was, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read that kept me interested the entire time. There was not a single moment when it was hard to pick the book back up after putting it down. I was invested in the main character, Ava, who was the emotionally stronger character out of the rest. 

My favorite scenes are when the man confesses his undeniable love — even though it is so far-fetched from reality. A girl can dream, and this book has that confession scene more than just once because he must win her back. These scenes are charged with so much emotion and anger when the recipient does not reciprocate. Ava does not disappoint.

“Twisted Love” has three other books as a part of this four-book series that each can be read as a stand-alone, even though they are interconnectedly woven. Essentially, Ava has a friend group, and each book is based off each of the girls’ love lives.

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