Twisted Lies

The review

Christian Harper is a monster in a tailored suit: the head of a security empire who knows everyone's secrets and has been quietly fixated on the woman one floor below him. Stella Alonso is sweet, introverted and social-media famous, and when a threat from her past closes in, she accepts his offer to move into his home. Twisted Lies closes out Ana Huang's Twisted series with its most dangerous hero.

Christian is the series' darkest lead. He has been in the background of every Twisted book as the man who fixes problems and asks no questions, and here Huang finally opens him up. He is controlling, cold and very aware of how far over the line he is, which makes his devotion to Stella feel more unsettling and more intoxicating than anything the earlier heroes managed.

Stella is the counterweight: a gentle, private heroine who has built a career on being looked at and is quietly exhausted by it. The fake-relationship arrangement forces them into close quarters, and the book is at its best when she pushes back on his control and wins. The stalker subplot keeps the tension high to the last act.

The heat: four peppers. Amazon's listing flags explicit content, violence, profanity and sensitive topics. The scenes are frequent and explicit, and the possessiveness is turned up a notch from earlier books.

Know before you start: it is the final Twisted book and wraps up the friend group, so you will enjoy the cameos more if you have read the others, but Stella and Christian's story is self-contained and ends happily. If you have read Twisted Love and wanted the hero even darker, this is the book you were asking for. It is also the natural bridge from Huang's contemporaries into true dark romance like Lights Out.

Read it if you want the darkest Ana Huang hero. Skip it if a hero who watches the heroine before she knows him is a dealbreaker.