For me, the Twist Me trilogy will always be my favourite. I have this loyalty to Julian and Nora, and their dark, obsessive love. In principle, I am always compelled by a hero who simply sees a woman, obsesses over her, and steals her right in the comfort of her own home town in order to keep her. If I re-read a book more than three times, it goes straight into my favourites. I found the narrative so romantic too, with Nora's naivety and strength in stark comparison to Julian's callousness and weakness of her existence. Especially since he is a sociopathic illegal arms dealer, and holds an empire in his hand. It's fantastic, I would recommend everyone to read it.
Julian Esguerra's second in command was Lucas Kent, an American soldier. The Capture Me trilogy narrated Lucas and Yulia's story. Yulia who double crossed Julian as a spy, and cost him the lives of fifty of his strongest men. This caused a rift between Lucas and his employer as he falls in love with Yulia. Due to my loyalty to Julian and Nora, if someone isn't in their good books, they aren't in mine, so whilst I enjoyed the series, I didn't re-read it.
The Tormenter Mine trilogy narrates the story of Peter. Peter who used to work with Julian for a loyal five year service in order to maintain the list of people responsible for killing his wife and child. However, when Julian gets kidnapped, Peter hatches an escape plan using Nora, Julian's wife as bait to discover Julian's location and save him. Nora proposed the plan with the immediate promise of a list desperate to retrieve her husband. However for Julian, putting Nora at risk in any way led him to have a vendetta against Peter.
In Tormentor Mine, the first book, Peter is systematically obliterating all the names from the list he received, until he comes across Sara. She is the window of the man he kills in order to avenge his family, and she has become his obsession. It started with Peter drugging and water boarding Sara in lieu of information on her husband, and ended with him drugging her from the protection of the FBI to steal her for himself.
"Nobody is taking Sara away from me.
She chose me, and she’s staying mine.”
Peter truly loves Sara. But in this life, the past will forever be an obstruction between them. She will not fall in love with her husbands killer. A husband she once loved.
“Yes, I drugged and took her without asking, but she had to know I wouldn’t leave her behind. I told her how much I loved her, and though she didn’t say the words back to me, I know she’s not indifferent.”
***
“I’m saying that I love you, ptichka… and that I hate you. Because it hurts, you see, knowing you still love him, still think about him when you’re with me.” My voice roughens, my grip tightening as she again tries to scoot away. “Your husband’s killer—that’s how you see me, that’s all you sometimes see. If I could wipe him from your mind, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d erase every record of his existence, make him into the nothing that he is. In a different world, you’d have been born mine, but in this one, I had to fight for you… kill for you.”
Peter is constantly reassuring himself. That her captivity will change into a desire to want this life with him, to fall in love with him. To let go of her career as a doctor. To never see her family again. And he does whatever he can to make her happy, accessing latest medical journals and reports, keeping her well fed and satisfied, pampered even. Yet, it is a shadow without her willingness, despite her gravitation to him.
“She might be having second thoughts about her decision, but she’ll come around and accept the situation, just like she was beginning to accept our relationship. And then she’ll be happy again—happier, even. We’re going to build a life together, and it’s going to be one she’ll enjoy as well.
I have to believe that, because this is the only way I can have her.”
This love of his lies in obsession. Everything else before it pales in comparison. He had a friendship and respect with his wife, a family from a blip of a one night stand which was robbed from him. But Sara presents a whole new set of ideals.
“My affection for Tamila was just that, a mere echo of the raw emotions Sara evokes in me.
And Sara is beginning to see him for so much more than the man he appears to be. Yet a mirage of a happy life will never settle her desire to escape the captivity she is in. She will always keep trying.
"I feel so much anger at the cruelty of the world that shaped him into the dark, tormented man he is today, into this ruthless, amoral killer who, despite everything, craves love and family.”
I will admit, even as Peter admits he loves Sara and shows it in his actions, I can't feel it in the writing. Not in the way I felt it with Julian and Nora or even Lucas and Yulia. That might be a completely individual thing, but I didn't feel that penetrating romance. The cliffhanger.... If my baby Julian gets one tiny hair hurt from his lush Mexican locks, I will cut you Peter. He's already lost an eye and has a prop in.
3.5 stars.
P.s. Every single book in all the trilogies are safe.