Book Review: A Twisted Love Story | Samantha Downing

I mean this in the best possible way—what did I just read??? Samantha Downing never disappoints me, and her latest book A Twisted Love Story is no exception. I didn’t even really read what the book was about before starting it because when it comes to Samantha Downing, I know without question I will be entertained!

A modern and truly twisted love story, I couldn’t put it down. The story is compelling, the characters are unpredictable, and by the end I really didn’t know who was the villain, who was the hero, and who got what they deserved. A Twisted Love Story is a total roller coaster from start to finish and I enjoyed the ride immensely!

About the Book (Goodreads)

Wes and Ivy are madly in love. They’ve never felt anything like it. It’s the kind of romance people write stories about.

But what kind of story?

Because when it’s good, it’s great. Flowers. Grand gestures. Deep meaningful conversations where the whole world disappears.

When it’s bad, it’s really bad. Vengeful fights. Damaged property. Arrest warrants.

But their vicious cycle of catastrophic breakups and head-over-heels reconnections needs to end fast. Because suddenly, Wes and Ivy have a common enemy–and she’s a detective.

There’s something Wes and Ivy never talk about–in good times or bad. The night of their worst breakup, when one of them took things too far, and someone ended up dead.

If they can stick together, they can survive anything—even the tightening net of a police investigation.

Because one more breakup might just be their last…

Characters

Wes and Ivy are our primary on-again-off-again couple. They met in college (and yes, we get a flashback to the night they met and it was as delightful as every scene they are in) and have dated and broken up countless times since. When the book begins, they are broken up.

Wes works in sales and Bianca is the main assistant at his work. She is also quite nosy and regularly keeps tabs on the goings-on around the office through her access (both authorized and not) to offices, email, calendars, and computers. Abigail was formerly in Bianca’s position and has now been promoted to an executive assistant role. Abigail and Wes have always gotten along well. Abigail was around for a major incident with Ivy, so she has a less-than-ideal perspective on her.

Karen is a detective and she works primarily with domestic and sexual crimes, as well as some violent crimes. Karen was formerly in an abusive relationship and she puts her whole heart into her work. Karen is originally brought into Wes and Ivy’s sphere through Ivy, and later she becomes fixated on figuring out their relationship.

Heath is Ivy’s best friend. He isn’t a fan of Wes, having been there through many of their break ups. He is Ivy’s go-to when she and Wes are on the rocks. Ivy also has a few friends from work as well as a man named Milo who she meets briefly early in the book and who comes and goes throughout.

Plot and Structure

Narrated from multiple perspectives, this is a story that you won’t soon forget! Samantha Downing is a master at using multiple narrators to build a story. Each time it changes narrators my opinion of what I thought was happening and the characters shifted, until the story rounds all the way out and I was on a journey through the shocking and deliciously twisted ending! Chapters are short and neat, and rotate between many of the characters, though most frequently from Wes, Ivy, Karen, and Bianca.

Wes and Ivy are a love story for the ages…some of the time. When things are good, they are unbeatable. Their chemistry is sizzling hot, and more than physical chemistry, they understand and accept one another for their most twisted and dark moments just as much (if not more) than their light ones.

But things between Wes and Ivy are not always good. Sometimes Wes and Ivy’s chemistry is explosive. They find attraction in knowing how to provoke one another. They live in a toxic (or maybe romantic, depending on the day) cycle of being in love, breaking up, not communicating, then provoking contact with the other, only to get back together and end up back in love again.

During one of their cycles, Ivy is convinced Wes is leaving her small creepy gifts, the sort of gesture that is sure to pull her right back in. But Ivy needs to retaliate, to get Wes’s attention. That’s how their relationship works, after all. When a detective named Karen shows up at Wes’s office to interview him on suspicion of stalking Ivy, Wes is infuriated. How dare Ivy bring her drama to his workplace?

Soon enough, Wes and Ivy are right back together. But now that Karen’s interest has been piqued, she can’t drop it. Karen is convinced that Wes is abusive to Ivy, and coming from her own abusive past she sees it as her duty to not drop it, even when Ivy tells her to.

Meanwhile the assistant at Wes’s office Bianca is a bit too interested. She looks up the detective’s specialty and begins to become even more interested in what Wes may be hiding. Abigail, the senior assistant, says Ivy is trouble. But Bianca thinks Wes may be the problem, and she has the access to his things to try to prove it.

As Ivy and Wes enter another cycle of their love story, they begin to worry that a long-buried secret from their past may be revealed. There is more than a twisted love story to these two, there is a dead body and they want to be sure no one connects it to them.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed reading A Twisted Love Story so much! Wes and Ivy are connected with a magnetic force that is beautiful and toxic and destructive in the most entertaining ways I can imagine. The most fun part of this book was figuring out exactly what is currently and what formerly went on between Wes and Ivy. Who is the toxic one? Is it both of them? Is one the victim of the other? Was any of this preventable?

Obsession and love collide into a beautiful and destructive relationship. Samantha Downing has a gift with writing characters who are quite toxic, but whom I find captivating and entertaining with every word, sentence, and paragraph. I can’t even begin to explain what a wild ride this book is! Absolutely off-the-wall fun in the best, most twisted love story I’ve read this year.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.