Twisted Games

The review

Bridget von Ascheberg is a princess with a looming crown and a list of royal obligations. Rhys Larsen is the stoic bodyguard assigned to keep her alive, and he has two rules: protect the client, and never get involved. She breaks both on principle. When her brother abdicates and duty starts pushing her toward a political marriage, the bodyguard romance stops being a game. For many readers it is the best book in the Twisted series.

The bodyguard setup is the whole appeal and Huang plays it straight. Rhys is all clipped answers, scanned exits and quiet competence, and Bridget is a woman who has been watched her entire life and wants, for once, to be seen. Their banter is better than in Twisted Love, and the slow burn actually burns slowly.

The second half moves from forbidden romance into royal drama. Once Bridget becomes heir, the question shifts from whether they can hide this to whether a princess can choose a bodyguard at all, and the book takes that seriously. The political marriage plot gives the third act real weight, and Rhys's backstory gets a proper payoff.

The heat: four peppers. Amazon's listing flags a possessive hero, explicit content and profanity. Once the line is crossed the scenes are frequent and explicit, with a protective, slightly growly dynamic rather than anything dark.

Know before you start: Bridget appears in Twisted Love as Ava's friend, but this book follows its own couple and reads fine on its own. It ends happily for both of them. If you only read one Twisted book, readers will tell you to read this one, and we would agree. It is the cleanest example of what Huang does well: a cool hero, a warm heroine and a payoff you can feel coming from chapter one.

Read it if bodyguard romance is your weakness. Skip it if you need a heroine with a normal job; the royal setting is very much the point.