It starts as a violent encounter in a nightclub bathroom but quickly spirals into something else entirely as Bennett Osgood becomes trapped in an endless cycle of give and take. In the dark, bound by more than his desire, there is no escape from his relentless captor. His only option is to lie—to everyone, including himself.
When things begin to unravel and the truth about his stranger comes to light Bennett finally has to decide: is love worth risking everything?
Odessa Hywell is a taboo MM romance author with a book addiction and coffee problem, who lives in the Southern United States with her husband, their teenage son, who mocks her for being short, and way too many animals.
Aside from writing and reading, she enjoys gardening, cooking, and playing video games.
Her favorite season is winter—hello, snow—but in the summer, she travels as much as possible.
Some of her favorite spots are The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Dead Horse Point, Moab UT, Gatlinburg TN, Helen GA, Silverton CO, Roswell, NM—plus honestly, a lot more. The list is nearly endless.
A few places she plans to go in the future are New Orleans, LA and Salem, MA during spooky season, Smuggler's Notch, VT during autumn, the Colorado Mountains during the winter, New York City, Washington DC, a cruise to anywhere, on a hot air balloon ride, on a train trip down the California Coast . . .
In 2021, she decided because she is married to a twin it was best NOT to publish her books featuring twincest and other questionable themes under her married name as her husband would not approve.
—His loss, honestly.—
If you know who Odessa Hywell is, don’t be a snitch. Like Benjamin Franklin said, “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
After reading Say You Love Me, I went and bought all of Odessa Hywell’s books on Smashwords. Taboo stories with incest/twincest are one of my favourites, and I really liked this author’s writing style and how the stories seemed to be on the sweeter side.
Twisted Together was, well…twisted? We have fraternal twins, Bennett and Cooper. Bennett has always had unbrotherly love towards his beloved twin and has kept those feelings to himself. While they are closer and touch more than your average siblings, they only have each other after losing their parents. One night at a club, Bennett is forced by a stranger, and that stranger, who feels familiar, keeps coming back.
Okay, now this is where the story becomes pretty messed up. It is almost 80% non-con, and that first scene in the club's bathroom was definitely straight up rape. However, it soon becomes more dub-con, and later we even get CNC between the twins.
This story wasn’t just straight-up erotica; despite some of the actions by Cooper, it was emotional. You know these two love one another but were scared to take that next step. I loved seeing how close they were, the cuddling, the touching, the “I love you” between them.
Now do I think what Cooper did was despicable? Yes, of course. I still wonder if he was forgiven too quickly, as it must have been traumatic for Bennett to realize your beloved brother seems to have a split personality and violated you in the worst way imaginable. You need a healthy dose of reality suspension for this story. I feel like Cooper still has so much to make up for, but I am happy they get their HEA at the end.
Overall it was a smutty, sweet at times (?), emotional, twisted twincest story! I would advise checking TWs, as this story is basically non-con for most of the plot.
There's SO MUCH to unpack here, I don't even know where to begin.
This is wrong on so many levels, especially because it doesn't have a huge fucking ‼️TRIGGER WARNING! Let me be the one to give it to you.
🔴RAPE 🔴CONTINUOUS RAPE 🔴THE SEX ITSELF HURTS ONE OF THE MC'S 🔴WE DON'T KNOW WHEN THEY GET TOGETHER IF SAID MC REALLY WANTS TO BE WITH HIS BROTHER OR NOT, BECAUSE HE KEEPS SAYING THAT HE DOESN'T WANT TO, THEY CAN'T DO THIS, HE'S AFRAID HE'S GOING TO MAKE HIM DO THINGS HE DOESN'T WANT, HE WANTS A NORMAL LIFE 🔵 Yes, the TW is there but the extent of this non-con is too long, in the end it doesn't feel like the MMC wants this, he's gaslighted into it
I gave this book a chance right up until the point when Bennett realised that the guy that's been sneaking into his room and making him do stuff pretty much against his will, is his brother.
It's sick as fuck, but could be hot if written differently, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt, I gave it a shot, there HAD to be a deeper, ultra loving, crazy romantic meaning, right?
Wrong.
Cooper went for the mindfuck. Cooper didn't care about Bennett. Cooper decided to rather rape, gaslight Bennet and I don't know, make a day out of it.
And Bennett should have left when he found out about it. If he left and took himself out of the situation, time would go by, he'd live his life, have another boyfriend, whatever, then Cooper would come in and really redeem himself, I mean life-and-character-changing-shit redeem himself and they'd get together, right?
Wrong again.
Not to mention the fact that Bennett was a virgin and his whole experience with sex and intimacy has been one continuous rape, I had a feeling he couldn't get out of it, even if he wanted to.
It felt like this is not really what he wanted to do. It felt like he was coerced into every decision he made about them being together. He stayed with Cooper, because he was his brother and he was sorry and they fooled around a little bit as teenagers and secretly crossed the line a little bit over the years, so this must be ok, right?
The story was poorly executed, especially the last 1/3 of the book. My god, this could have turned out so, so good if the author would just turn the story a little bit. And to think of them in #Transgressions Of The Father and how they behaved, I mean, now I feel really sorry for Bennett.
Forget kinky, this is not kinky, this is bullshit.
*** I received an eArc from the author in exchange for an honest review.***
This was a fabulous taboo read that was exceptional. I was immediately sucked into this story and its unique dynamic between the two main characters and I was able to figure out the twist early enough, which brought upon a new layer of intrigue with the overall relationship between both main characters.
Overall I always enjoy reading every story from Odessa Hywell and anxiously await her next juicy taboo read. I fully recommend reading this story if you enjoy stories that definitely put you outside your comfort zone in all the best ways.
This book needs a trigger warning in the blurb. This book is entirely one SA after another and only from the victim's point of view. I don't think the blurb really explains that it's a constant theme. It's not just "some" non-consent...it's nearly all non-consent.
I honestly bought this book because I read the next one in the series first and these 2 make an appearance.
I hated this book. I finished it, but I hated it.
There's no "fluff" in this book. This isn't a feel good book. The difference between this book and the next are night and day. If I had read them in order, I'd never would have read the second book.
This is definitely not for everyone. It's taboo (twincest) and dark, not only because of the non-con/dubcon, but also because there's some psychological manipulation from one of the MC. But if you go in with the right expectations and a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, the OTT premise becomes kind of fun, actually! It's messed up, but also, kind of silly? I don't know exactly, but I loved it. The prose is good, the codependant dynamics between the twins was lovely, and the sex scenes were pretty hot. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's OK with the above themes!
Bennett and Cooper are fraternal twins. After their parents passed away they only have each other for family. They work together and live together.
One weekend when Cooper is out camping Bennett goes clubbing and finds himself raped in a bathroom stall. The rapist finishes with telling him not to go to the police because he knows where he lives. Then he keeps showing up at Bennett and Cooper's home everytime Cooper is 'out' for the evening. Apparently Bennett is in complete denial that it's Cooper. (Given the author states it's a twin taboo story in the description you know going in that it's Cooper.)
I intensely disliked this book. Almost to the point of hating it. In fact, in all honesty, I do hate it. In the description of the book it states there are cuddles and plenty of fluff. So I was thinking it's like most of my favorite taboo twin/brother/stepbrother stories... with genuine love between them and most, if not all of it, is consensual between them. In reality there are maybe 2 cuddles and there is NO fluff. It is a book of one much bigger brother continually raping his much smaller twin over and over and over. The begging him to stop and the tears apparently aren't enough to make him stop.
Tried something a little different and you know what? Odessa brought us phenomenal writing, non con/dub con/cnc twincest. If you have no triggers, this one was filthy hot 🤤
I really don’t know what to say…I Love Odessas taboo books so much! And I’m a really open person to EVERYTHING, i also don’t get triggered easily BUT this book was a huge no no for me… the thing is, there was not a single TW for rape?! And this is a red flag for me🙅🏻♀️ I tried my best and read the first 15 pages but after that I just couldn’t do it anymore,especially after I looked through the book and saw that I just continues with the rape scenes ughh.
I don’t wanna rate anything here but I had to write this comment.
It includes twincest, non-con, dub-con, and CNC. It also made me cry just a little because I got invested in the emotions between the two.
This was both a hot read and surprisingly emotional! I came into it expecting it to be an erotica read and nothing more, but caught myself staying up reading and even crying when Bennett was feeling at his lowest. I won’t go on tons and tons about this because honestly, if you’re alright with the above topics, just read it.
Odessa Hywell’s writing is superb. I’m scared to read her next series because then I’ll have nothing else to read! I hope she continues to write more and more because it flows so nicely.
“You are beautiful and precious and all the good things that exist in this universe, and I would be a monster to dim the light that exists inside of you.”
This was a wonderfully twisty, dark, hot read. Poor Bennett, going from not knowing whats going on to suspecting but hiding, to finding out. I loved the codependency of Bennett and Cooper. All around a great read.
I like a good non-con if it's done well. And while the story is hot that's kinda all there is to it. There is no consequences for what happens and it ruined what could have been a good story. When it became clear where it was headed, I skimmed the rest of the book.
I dislike when it feels like and author is forcing their character to act in a way that doesn't seem natural for them.
The start of the book don't make sense with the end of the book, and I understand it's to have that mystery but at that point it don't work.
I'm giving it a two because I couldn't get passed the lack of consequences or Cooper and his weirdly split personality. Not really sure what was up with the neighbour scene, unless it's the intro for another book.
This was my first Odessa Hywell book and I really enjoyed it! I had a suspicion what was going on from pretty early in the book, which definitely helped me enjoy the noncon scenes more. I really like the dual plot lines trope, and this book did it very well. Looking forward to reading more by the author.
I never thought that I would read a taboo twincest with noncon, dubcon, CNC, etc and find myself bored…. and yet I was. I did prefer the author’s choice of 3rd person in this book, and while it started off interesting, I soon found it repetitive. By the end, I was skimming. “Please” was used 74x, and I never though such a polite word would get on my nerves quite so much.
There's themes in this that won't be to a lot of people's liking but I really enjoyed it. Triggers include non-con, dub-con and there's also consensual non consent. Bennett and Cooper appear to fight their relationship but it is obvious that Bennett just didn't want to know who the stranger was so he had deniability. A lot of steamy moments pieced together with sweetness.
I feel like I read a very different book to what I was sold in the blurb. I was told I was getting dubcon/noncon, "sweet cuddles" and "plenty of fluff to keep you afloat in these dark times."
What I actually got was rapefic with elements of horror and some "fluffy moments." The combination made the book tonally disjointed. I'm perplex why the book was tagged as dubcon on Smashwords instead of rape - it's Smashwords after all, not Amazon. I'm sorry but if a character is sobbing and ugly-crying, it's rape not dubcon, and I found many scenes hard to stomach.
The story is well written, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
2.25 stars Wow I tried this because this couple showed up in the morally ambiguous duet and I got curious but this was definitely not what I was expecting.
I can get behind some dubcon/noncon if its done well but this was straight up 60% uncomfortable rape?? And also I had to suspend my disbelief so much. How can you not recognise the voice and hands of your twin who you literally work with, live with and sleep with???? And somehow his smell changes too???? Makes no sense to me
Cooper literally gave me whiplash with how he acted and the justification for his actions were pretty weak. Overall pretty disappointed with how this played out.
The plot doesn’t make any sense. I don’t get Cooper’s weird personality change. I’m confused between the first and last chapter I had to re-read like a thousand times and I still don’t get it. It was boring. I don’t feel their connection even though they’re close and twins. I don’t even bother to read the bonus scene bye :/
I loved this line though : “You are beautiful and precious and all the good things that exist in this universe, and I would be a monster to dim the light that exists inside of you.”
If I had read this before Morally Ambiguous, I would have never bothered reading it. These two seemed so fun, happy and in love in Morally Ambiguous but there’s nothing loving about Twisted Together. It’s a toxic obsession and not even in a way that can be sexy. Cooper repeatedly r*pes/coerces Bennett throughout the book. He disregards his pleas to stop constantly and Bennett does some mental gymnastics to make himself believe he likes it. His reaction gives trauma response. I think he may have been in love with Cooper prior to the events in the book, but Coopers actions contaminated the relationship and there’s no real way to know if the feelings were genuine. This may unfortunately be my last book by this author
Twisted Together by Odessa Hywell 3 🌟 🌟🌟 (Verified Purchase) Firstly, my 3-star rating has nothing whatsoever to do with the author's excellent writing. This book is virtually typo free and exceptionally well edited (That's definitely a plus from me) albeit a tad repetitive at times. For example : far too many kisses on the temple. To the point it becomes annoying and stops being "Aww how sweet". (of the 27 times his temple is mentioned, 18 were Temple kisses).
Basically, I just didn't gel with the constant, consistent and continuous lack of, or dubious consent in this story. After several instances, I found myself intensely disliking Cooper (yes we know right from the start who "the stranger" is). Then, we have Bennett. Could any character (in any book ever) be so dense. The two brothers are obviously as thick as thieves, and always have been. How could he possibly have been in any doubt? He "knows" that voice but can't place it? He would know his brother well enough to recognize his scent, his touch, the feel of his embrace. But poor Bennett doesn't have a clue. Not likely! Cooper knows how this scenario is messing with his brother's mind, and traumatizing him, but he continues to lie and hurt him mentally (not to mention physically). What manner of Love is that? I'm sorry, there is just so much wrong with this story, I was glad to finally reach the end. I was bitterly disappointed when the truth was revealed and I had hoped that Bennett would leave and never come back. This issue (conflict) was far too easily resolved and forgiven... Of course, after once again being forced by Cooper. Too much. Far, far too much.
* I have already read (prior to this one) and rated (5 stars) the author's following duet, which I loved!
I felt every emotion Bennett went through with his situation. The hurt, fear, pain, and the confusion of hating what’s happening to him, but, at some point, being okay and almost wanting it was well written. Although, a mind f**k. In a good way…maybe?
The way Bennet rationalized away his suspicions made sense, but after a while I found myself going “Oh come on! It’s obvious Bennett!” Then again, he was going through a lot. At least the author didn’t skip over the way trauma is rationalized.
The steamy scenes were oh so so very steamy. In a dark, twisted way. Not going to lie, it going be going. They were also passionate and caring.
The author took the saying “Love makes you do crazy things” and gave me everything my depraved, dark, yet hopelessly romantic mind needed.