Review: Twisted Kingdom by Rina Kent

Twisted Kingdom by Rina Kent

Series: Royal Elite #3

Publication date: January 22nd, 2020

Pages: 358

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

The kingdom isn't supposed to fall.

The truth screws you over before it sets you free.

Masks drop.

Secrets unravel.

Elsa's race after the past blinds her from the present.

I'll fight for her.

I'll bring her back.

I'll promise her even if it's the last thing I do.

We made a promise.

She's mine.

Are you ready for one final game, sweetheart?

Twisted Kingdom is book three of Royal Elite Series and should be read after Deviant King & Steel Princess. This is a dark high school bully romance, mature new adult, and contains dubious situations that some readers might find offensive.

This book is the final part of a trilogy and is NOT standalone.

Available at:

Review:

In the final installment of the trilogy all the secrets are laid to rest and all the questions are answered. Or so they should be. There were still some areas were I was a little perplexed. Without giving away any spoilers, one vast issue I found was in the person who started the fire that nearly claimed Elsa and her father's lives and the lengths to which they went to try to keep their secret. It seems as if they were determined to keep their secret under wraps even at the detriment of their main focus's wrath but then just gave it all up in a flash like it didn't matter at all. Their transition from being so dead set against anyone else knowing the truth to the point of starving and harming others then to just blowing the whistle on their own actions in a roundabout way, it was a bit unusual. I honestly thought that they were going to be revealed to be an evil twin like in one of those cheesy soap operas on daytime television within a few times in the book. 

I felt that all the lead up to Elsa rediscovering her memories was a little bit disappointing when she finally got to that point. I felt that all the things she discovered could have just as easily been told by the parties that experienced them firsthand with her. Aiden, her father, her Aunt and Uncle, all of them could have just laid it all out for her from their viewpoints and let her fill in her own impressions along the way. I didn't feel her grand reveal that she remembered everything to be that drastic a change from a story told by witnesses. That is where the book fell a little short for me.

Aiden and Elsa seem to cement their relationship, though, after suffering yet another set back. I swear, those two seem to run into more problems that make them suddenly untrusting of each other so many times that it was getting to the point where I was just heaving a sigh and going "what now?!" The problem seemed to lie in the fact that they both were stubborn and wanted to play each other's game until one or both of them inevitably got her. Aiden maybe less so since he is, by the author's final declaration, a sociopath. I suppose I mixed psychopath and sociopath up a bit. I found the couple to be dynamic in the fact that even though Aiden didn't feel things the same way that normal people did, Elsa was willing to not only accept that he was different but fully love him for it. She didn't care if he pampered her or wooed her. She just wanted him to be authentically himself with her. Which is something that a lot of relationships in reality could take a page from.

I was really enthralled with this trilogy overall. I found the mysteries to be those that I could speculate about over and over again but never fully solve until the author laid them out for me. I found the fact that she took a male protagonist that was by societal standards completely unlovable and made him not only the stuff of fantasy but shed light on the capacities of emotion those who lack empathy naturally may reach. Aiden was a completely unique character model that you weren't supposed to completely like. The reader was supposed to look at him with anger and resentment when was possessive or demanding so they could feel what Elsa felt. But overtime we get to watch him grow little by little, not for himself, but for the woman he loved. He changed to be who she needed him to be. And Elsa also started accepting some of her darkness to meet him half way. They were truly idyllic characters.

I think if you are dipping your toe in the Rina Kent world, you should start from the beginning. Bear witness to the growth of the characters as they harken back to each other and give perspective on what may be happening with the characters lurking in the shadows while you focus on the main attractions. In Levi's book we only saw glimpses of Aiden and Elsa's interactions. And in this trilogy we saw what was really happening. I look forward to reading the rest of her books as the horsemen all find their women and we get to see what we may have missed while we were distracted by others.