Author: Eva Ashwood
Series: Filthy Wicked Psychos Series book #1
Category: Dark Romance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
"Three brothers. Three monsters. Three men who wouldn't hesitate to kill me if they had to, to protect each other."
First off, I need to get something off my chest, loud and clear. I don’t need to see the moody, bad-ass, emotionally unavailable guy fucking a faceless woman carelessly at the beginning of a book to know he is a womanizer. Seriously, I'm begging you, authors, just mention the guy goes through women like water and I’ve got the picture.
Aside from my pet peeve smacking me in the face 15 pages into the book, this dark romance was textbook, with the added benefit of a why why-choose romance of dangerously sinful men.
Willow finds herself at the wrong place at the wrong time, constantly fighting to get somewhere in life but struggling under the weight of the bad decisions of other people. She is generally naive in that she wants to believe the best in people, but she is too innocent to really stand up for herself against those who take advantage of her.
"Maybe...maybe I'm as twisted and fucked up as I always wanted to avoid being. Maybe I'm not normal, not a person who's attracted to normal guys. Instead, I crave monsters." - Willow
And it's because of her innocence and wholesomeness that Malice, Victor, and Ransom are drawn to her, despite venomously not wanting to be. Each of them carries so many scars and dark secrets, that they gravitate to her light.
"We might not be the most powerful players in Detroit, but that doesn't matter. There's no one more brutal than me and my brothers." - Malice
Malice was the most brutal, with anger at the world barely contained. He lashed out constantly but also felt everything the most deeply. Victor was particular, a lovingly gentle stalker who was closed off because of his childhood but expressed himself in different ways. Ransom was considered the easygoing brother and he thankfully treated Willow the best as the three danced around a relationship of sorts.
While none of them are good men, I loved how each tried to look out for Willow in their own way, giving her what they could. Their initial meeting, and subsequent ones for a good chunk of the book, are not friendly but soon the brothers' motives change and they go from stalking and harassing Willow to protecting her.
There was definite spice with this book, and with multiple men to please things got creative at times. I'm interested to see how they figure out the relationship between the three of them, considering this first book doesn't really address Willow officially choosing one of the brothers though jealousy is certainly there.
Malice: Puts a gun to Willow's head forcing her to move into their house
Five minutes later...
Malice: Jealous that Willow chooses to sleep in his brother's bed
This dark romance has plenty of shady characters, some of whom haven't been identified yet. There is a lot going on in the plot and I have a feeling nothing is as it seems. Twisted Game kept me on my toes and ended in a huge cliffhanger, so it’s no surprise I’ll be reading book two after publishing this review.
Tropes and Themes: Dark Romance, Reverse Harem, Why Choose, Mafia, Enemies to Lovers, Stalker, Crime, Slow Burn, Cliffhanger.
Blurb
I was the girl no one looked at twice. Until they saw me.
My whole life, no one has had my back. My parents are dead, my adoptive mother is a drug addict, and the mean girls on campus mock me for my scars.
So when I end up desperate for money and out of options, I agree to sell the one thing I have left: my innocence.
On the night I’m meant to give my body to a brutal Russian mobster, three men storm into the room like dark shadows and kill him before he can claim me. When they drag me from the blood-soaked bed, I’m certain they’re going to kill me too.
They don’t… but they don’t forget about me, either.
These three dangerous brothers will do anything to make sure I keep my mouth shut about what I saw, even if it means stalking my every movement. I’m a loose thread to them—but somehow, I’m becoming more than that too.
I’m becoming an obsession.
A temptation.
A craving.
And no matter how much I try to deny the terrifying attraction that pulses between us, I know if I don’t find a way out of this tangled web soon…
Their darkness will swallow me up.
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