From the bestselling author of My Lovely Wife comes a reckless, delicious thriller that gives a whole new meaning to the dangers of modern dating.

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

But what kind of story?

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 reconciliations 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…

Review: A Twisted Love Story

Two twisted love birds hide a deadly secret in Samantha Downing’s new psychological thriller, a TWISTED LOVE STORY.

As an avid fan of MY LOVELY WIFE and HE STARTED IT, I had high expectations for this latest. Downing has such a unique style—a proclivity for dramatic flair that’s made her stories diabolically fun to read. Unfortunately, I had a tough time getting through this one.

We meet Wes and Ivy, whose relationship is undeniably twisted and toxic. From rages of jealousy and calculated vengeance to grand gestures and inseparability, their relationship swings between love and catastrophic breakups. They are unlikeable as people and impossible to relate to in their juvenile madness. Those characteristics, however, were not the problem for me.

Wes and Ivy share a dark secret—one that left a person dead. That secret begins to unravel in the story, and this is where I struggled. I had hoped this central fulcrum would raise the stakes of what was feeling like monotonous pacing, but that never happened. The narrative felt fragmented and flat, and there was never sufficient tension or excitement to buoy the story. Supporting characters (as unlikeable as the protagonists) muddied the waters, but nothing and no one ultimately imbued what the story desperately needed.

I read it all the way through, and it was clever in parts, but this just wasn’t one I loved unfortunately. Hoping this was just a slip in her repertoire.