Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Twisted

This was by far the best book in the series for me! I don't think I have loved an Emily McIntire male more than Julian Faraci. He could tell me to jump, crawl, or beg, and I'd do it in a heartbeat just to hear that "Good Girl" praise from him whilst he called me gattina...
I have a thing for kitten ok, EVEN MORE, SO IN ITALIAN!!!.

This is a fractured fairytale, a concept my husband did not understand when I tried to explain it's almost like an inspired story based on characters from Aladdin but "Jafar" gets the girl. So if you think you are in for some strange retelling, unfortunately, this book is not that.

We have our "Princess" Yasmin who is having a secret relationship with Aiden, one of the "boys" on staff at her Father's estate. She is the only daughter of Ali Karam, the richest man in the world and owner of Sultans Diamonds. Unfortunately, daddy dearest is sick and his one dying wish is to see her married to a "respectable" man. Unfortunately, Aiden does not meet this criterion so Yasmin is forced to go to the person she hates for help. Julian Faraci her father's right-hand man.

The Juicy Tropes:
▶ ~~Enemies~~ Hate to Lovers
▶ Forced Proximity
▶ Love Triangle
▶ Age Gap (13 Years)
▶ Dad's Business Partner
▶ Arranged Marriage
▶ Touch her you die (literally)

This book caused two things that make me love a book more and as a result, I normally commend a book when it happens.

1. I DID NOT WANT TO STOP READING. I pride myself on being a "semi-normal" functioning adult who needs to stick to a routine bedtime to maintain said functionality...AND THIS BOOK ACTUALLY had me saying numerous times "just one more chapter" until the next thing I noticed it was 3:30 AM and I was still reading with a grumpy husband next to me because the iPad light was shining in his eyes...

2. I actually cried... this might be a spoiler as to why so I am going to hide it behind tags but it's more a Trigger Warming Spoiler...

(it's mentioned in the blurb that her dad is sick...so the logical conclusion is he might probably die) - If you have an aversion or negative emotional reaction to the Death of a Parent by cancer this book might not be for you. It's not something I keep away from in terms of my triggers. But due to my personal history, it does make me emotional. I knew going into this that this was "Dark" but then I normally expect VERY morally grey/black characters with torture, murder, death and blood. This one kinda threw me a curve ball and seeing Yasmin fall apart after her Baba dies broke me a little, so I couldn't stop the tears.

I really liked the characters in this story, Yasmin has spent her whole life being the dutiful daughter and to see how she grew through the book to step out of that mould and become someone who she wants to be was done soooooo well. She is complex, stubborn, naive and completely loyal to her father, even through his misogynistic ideals and I just saw so much of myself in her. Julian was a surprise, because even though he is not a good person (in the fact that he quite often feeds people to his snake). To see how much his childhood trauma affected him, as well as seeing that he cares about Yasmin's father and overtime when he realised his feelings for Yasmin and then all the protective feelings came out... I was just gushing...

I was very close to giving this book 5 Stars given how it affected me and based on how much I enjoyed it, however, there were a few things that brought this down.

1 - I felt like some chapters were missing showing the middle transition of hate to lovers, you know the part when they start to respect each other and maybe become friends or something...It was very much hate to love in a flip of a page- and while I do like the end game, I wanted to see a little more about how Julian got there (specifically). His internal thoughts mention he can't get her out of his mind, but we never really see this, we are only told.

2 - MY GOD IF I HAVE TO SEE THE WORDS BOTTOM LIP ONE MORE TIME I MIGHT SCREAM!!!! I think this is one of the only facial expressions our girl Yasmin can do... something "Bottom Lip" appears 25 times in the text, once it was even twice on one page. This girl must honestly have no lips left with the number of times she bites them...

3. As with Hooked, this felt a little too short and the ending was rushed. The last 20% hyper-speeds the plot compared to the first 80% and I just wanted this to slow a little bit down and have the same or similar pace to the majority of the story even if it meant adding a few extra pages.

Even with the few issues I had with this, I still REALLY REALLY enjoyed this and as said, it was my favourite Never After book to date. Now we just need to see what Crossed has in store for us in August!

Content Warnings