Twined - Renee Rocco ARC Review

This review has been written from an Advanced Reader Copy of Renee Rocco's book Twined, the conclusion to the Grim Tower Duet. This review contains spoilers, so if you want to read this book blind as I did - you've been warned!

Can we just start with a HELL YEAH? I LOVED Twisted - if you remember, it was one of my top books of November - and I am so genuinely thankful and lucky to have gotten an ARC of the conclusion. This is a dark why choose? romance so there are dark themes, some violence, and multiple love interests that the FMC does not choose between.

To quickly recap the characters:

• Rapunzel; female main character, I mean, she's Rapunzel you know her. She was locked in the tower and her powers are used for healing. At the end of book one, we learn how and why she was kidnapped and more about her family and history. As a child, she becomes friends with Wren and now, as part of his group of hoodlums, she wants to join their cause, fight for what's right, and ride all their dicks.

• Wren; broody king's soldier turned Robin Hood-esque character. He finds Rapunzel as a child and falls in love with her but when his father dies, he leaves his duties and Rapunzel to fight against the king he was bound to serve. He spends most of book one all angsty "I hate Rapunzel and I'm going to punish her for being a bitch" but really he's obsessed with her.

• Dax; part of Wren's merry band of thieves. Kind of the mediator of the group, he understands Wren's issues with Rapunzel but he also goads him into accepting her, understanding why she is the way she is, and being open with her. He's the first one to be openly sexual with and toward Rapunzel and make her feel safe and welcome, while opening her and the other men up to their sexual dynamic.

• Quinn; part demon part douchey, angsty fuckboy, Quinn is the love of my life. We learn about a deal he made with a demon in book one that makes him (sort of?) immortal, gives him a demonic (kind of?) alter-ego, and makes him super angry and aggressive most of the time. Quinn is the typical archetypal "evil" one of the harem but man does he love Rapunzel so intensely - in his own way. Quinn is the love of my life and Rocco gets that, dedicating this book "for everyone who fell in love with Quinn. This one's for you."

I knew I was going to love this book because Twisted was incredible and I knew Rocco wouldn’t disappoint and overwhelmingly, this was pretty close to perfection as I could’ve expected. My only gripe is that the timeline felt too tight. The pacing of book one, for me, felt more organic and unrushed. I would have liked more time in with Rapunzel in the castle plotting or having their plan go wrong and having to wait before it could be fixed and John killed. The latter half of the book felt like blink-and-it’s-over where everything was just a smidge too perfect.

I really enjoyed getting to see how the character’s relationships (as a harem, separate couples, and individual people) have evolved in the three months that have elapsed since the end of book one. Rapunzel has come into her confidence and doesn’t resent her hair/power, Wren has opened up to Rapunzel and doesn’t blame her, Quinn isn’t all grumbly and tormented about his damnation, and Dax is the perfect mediator between everyone, keeping them all together and (relatively) relaxed. I loved the casual vibes we got in the first ~quarter of the book. They’re preparing to infiltrate, training Rapunzel to fight (which, kind of unfortunately, we never actually get to see her fighting anyone cause the coup just works too perfectly - but I’ll get to that later), being their cute little harem of love and absolutely filthy sex. I missed the sass and jabs between all the men and it’s great to see how comfortable they are with Rapunzel as a part of their little family after the ending of book one. You can definitely tell that they’ve grown closer and more in love in that time.

I’m sure I’ll also mention this later in the review but the SPICE. Rocco really knows how to write the group scenes as well as the individual couple scenes - sometimes I find that why choose romances have group scenes that are either not enough/fade to black, or like twenty pages long and feel like they’d never actually happen in this way or for this long. There’s a really great combination of all of it and I loved seeing all of their relationships develop over the course of this novel.

The exposition was sprinkled in so well, though. Sometimes I find that authors spend way too much time upfront recapping what happened in previous books of a series in a way that feels like one of my high school students giving a book review but Rocco made it really natural. Something would be brought up about a plot point from the first book or about a character’s backstory and that’s when we’d get the, “oh yeah remember that Quinn was cursed by a demon and can literally send people to hell?” reminder. Speaking of Quinn: he is a big part of this novel (thank GOD (or should I say the devil???)) and the demon who bargained his soul offered Rapunzel the ability to free him from this bargain with “Two truths, freely offered, sealed in blood”. I knew to expect a lot of Quinn thanks to talks with Rocco via Instagram where I squealed into her DMs about my love for him - I just love toxic male love interests, what can I say? - so knowing that he had a chance to be free and not worry about his evil side was great.

Maybe I’m just a really fast reader and that’s why the plot felt rushed, but I really did feel like I blinked and all of a sudden they’re on the way to “deliver” Rapunzel to the king which is about 45% of the way through the book, but it felt like a much shorter period of time. When Rapunzel leaves her men to ingratiate herself into the king’s rule, I loved seeing how pained and proud the men were for her to take her given role and how she’s able to calm her men’s anger and convince them that she can handle herself - the king underestimates her (and all women) but her men won’t; they’ll support her 100% and at this point, it’s what she needs. When she is finally separated from her men and leaves with the king’s guard, we see - through Dax’s POV in this chapter - how Rapunzel is able to play to men’s expectations of a woman and play the meek, dutiful daughter who just wants to be reunited with her father after 24 years of various types of captivity.

Chapter 15 is when Rapunzel first meets her father and he is not having her “meek, submissive daughter” charade, “her false display of docility does not trick me. Any dolt can see the strained majesty in her graceful movements. The room crackles with the force of her courage. No, I am not fooled by her façade of timidity”. Rapunzel and John have a really well-written chess match going on. He’s trying to warm her up to him, rather than taking her hair by force and she is not fooled by his ‘father who’s thankful for being reunited with his daughter’s game. The good news is that Rapunzel joining the king means that Eleanor, Quinn’s sister, and the queen, has someone on her side; she’s able to learn of her brother and his battle to find and free her, and she’s able to help Rapunzel and her men kill the king. We love #GirlBosses. But, again, going back to the pacing, we’re like 70% of the way through the book and I keep thinking “...this is too easy. Something HAS to go wrong. What the FUCK is about to happen?!” Eleanor and Rapunzel team up and everything just kind of goes too perfectly for me toward the end. I like a little drama and this drama - especially compared to book one - kind of fizzled out for me.

John is basically on his deathbed, Eleanor sneaks in to tell Rapunzel and they manage to get the guys in, and while yes there is one “oh shit are they actually going to succeed” moment where you think all is lost, it just kind of…resolves itself too perfectly. When they sneak up on John, we get a chance to see his true evil for ourselves. He threatens Rapunzel. He threatens Eleanor. He’s able to disarm Wren and Quinn and torture Rapunzel by cutting her hair. Now, John is a great fucking villain but my god, do I HATE him. Stories like this MUST have a good villain but my god, I don’t enjoy it.

They kill John on basically their first try and they’re all able to live happily ever after. We get to see one last group sex scene and Rapunzel’s men worship her. The reverence with which these men love her…it’s fucking beautiful. Everything is wrapped up in a nice, neat bow.

Overall, I loved this book; the pacing is seriously my only gripe. The characterization is impeccable, the main character’s personalities get to grow and develop as individuals and together, and the good guys win. As far as retellings go, it’s a great mix of the original story and subverting our expectations; it’s dark but not TOO dark; the characters both fit into expected harem tropes and don’t. Rocco knew what she wanted and went for it with this duet and I am SO glad that I found it and was able to enjoy this ARC. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.