A review by glowstars
Twisted Obsession by Dani René

4.0

Twisted Obsession is based on the age-old mafia romance premise of a marriage contract joining two families together. The contract that binds Luna and Enzo together is triggered upon Enzo’s father’s death, which in itself is retaliation for Luna’s father’s death. There’s nothing quite like two familias trying to tear each other apart. The story could quite easily have ended before it really started, with Enzo refusing to invoke the contract but, despite having no idea why his father would insist on his marriage to Luna (other than to end her family line), he goes along with his father’s wishes. What this leaves us with is two people who hate each other based on the actions of their families before them.

As is customary, Enzo takes possession of Luna and installs her within his ivory tower. She’s no meek little mafia daughter; Luna has a fire burning within her and sass to match. She plans to “make the king fall”. It is clear she respects Enzo as a leader and mafia man even if she hates him. She can be quite strategic and calculating in her plans, but at the same time, her youthful innocence keeps her from seeing the games he is playing with her.

In the first part of the book, Luna alludes to a great secret that she’s keeping, one that once revealed will make her no longer useless to Enzo. As quite a big thing was made of it, I hoped that the secret would turn out to be the reason why their parents arranged their marriage or some deep, dark truth about one of the families. I’m not going to drop spoilers but will say that the revelation was a turning point in Enzo and Luna’s relationship.

Luna makes quite a bit of reference to her own darkness and Enzo bringing it to the surface, but aside from some steaming hot bloodplay and her torturing one particular prisoner, we never hear much more about it. I can’t help feeling that this was a character trait that could have been exploited to take the book from great to epic.

Enzo plays completely to type, the possessive, supposedly uncaring, mafia alphahole whose purpose in life is to shed blood and protect his woman, even if he doesn’t particularly want her at times. The development of his love for Luna and the way she gets under his skin is somewhat predictable.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ TWISTED OBSESSION
* Steamy scenes that are a higher temperature than your usual mafia romance
* A well-written book that pulls you in