TWISTED PALACE by Erin Watt — Review

Twisted Palace by Erin Watt
Series: The Royals #3
Also in this series: Paper Princess, Broken Prince, Fallen Heir, Cracked Kingdom
Published by Indie
on November 2
Pages: 370
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Review Copy Provided By: Author


Goodreads
AMZ US

These Royals will ruin you…

From mortal enemies to unexpected allies, two teenagers try to protect everything that matters most.

Ella Harper has met every challenge that life has thrown her way. She’s tough, resilient, and willing to do whatever it takes to defend the people she loves, but the challenge of a long-lost father and a boyfriend whose life is on the line might be too much for even Ella to overcome.

Reed Royal has a quick temper and even faster fists. But his tendency to meet every obstacle with violence has finally caught up with him. If he wants to save himself and the girl he loves, he’ll need to rise above his tortured past and tarnished reputation.

No one believes Ella can survive the Royals. Everyone is sure Reed will destroy them all.
They may be right.

With everything and everyone conspiring to keep them apart, Ella and Reed must find a way to beat the law, save their families, and unravel all the secrets in their Twisted Palace.

I was provided a review copy; this did not influence my opinion of the book.

When I finished ‘Twisted Palace’, I admit, I was disappointed. My first thoughts were, WTF did I just read? I didn’t like it.

But then I took a couple of days and thought about it. What is it that I didn’t like? What I came up with is the book felt different than the first two. It had a different tone, it read differently, and it had a different story. And that’s the problem. It was different.

The first two had so much teenage angst and so much excitement, that you couldn’t help but love it and be addicted to it. ‘Twisted Palace’ (for me) didn’t have any of that. It was missing the teenage angst that I had grown to love in the first two books of this series, and in fact went in an entirely different direction. ‘Twisted Palace’s’ focus was on the mystery, the whodunit? It was different. And I didn’t like the “different”. Perhaps if I was able to judge the book on its own merits, I would feel differently, because the writing isn’t bad, and perhaps the story would read differently to me if I had nothing else to compare it to. Because I didn’t feel like it fit into this series, the series that had become a TOP FAVE of 2016! And that was the problem for me, I missed the dynamic that the authors presented in the first two books.

Another issue I had was Steve’s storyline. I was let down.

******SPOILER ALERT If you have not read the first two, or even this book, do not read this part ********

At the very end of the last book, ‘Broken Prince’, we learn that STEVE has come back to life, well, he was never dead. This was one of the two pieces of information dangled in front of us in the form of a cliffhanger. I was sure ‘Twisted Palace’ was going to be the best in the series. The set up was spectacular. But what we got was a watered down version of events, which once told was never visited again. Pretty close to the beginning of the book, we learn what happened to Steve and where he had been. I assumed we would get more, we would get an understanding of what he went through those five years. Instead, I felt like it was glossed over. I assumed he would have had some trauma (mentally or physically) as a result and need to discuss it with someone, Ella or Callum. But he was perfectly fine. Coming back from a situation like that, there would be many more questions. None of that happened. We go from Steve being dead to Steve being alive to Steve taking over his daughter’s life. The instant daddy didn’t work for me. Also, who was this man? We had little to no character building. What we had read about him in the past was that he was a spirited, fun-loving man, with a wonderful sense of humor and sexiness. What we get was a different personality. Sure there were some other issues surrounding him, but this total turn-about didn’t work for me. And since this was a major part of the book, the book didn’t work for me.

If I were to judge Twisted Palace as part of the series, I would give it a 2.5-3. If I judged it solely by itself, I would give it a 3-3.5

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