Book Review
Title: Twisted Saga 1 (Books 1 – 3)
Author: Jo Ho
Genre: YA/Dark Fantasy
Rating: *****
Review: As this is a bind up of the first three novels in the Twisted series, I will be reviewing each book individually as I have done with other bind ups in the past. I didn’t know much about the Twisted Saga before starting it, but we know from the synopsis that it follows Marley.
What Doesn’t Kill You (Twisted Book 1)
The opening couple of chapters to What Doesn’t Kill You were dark and gritty, and I absolutely loved them, and I hope that they are setting the tone for the rest of the novel. We are introduced to something that likes hunting and killing people by snapping their necks and it has been around for hundreds of years, we get all this before we are introduced to our protagonist Marley Gray who is studying at Blackville University.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we are introduced to Cassie, Marley’s roommate, Tyler, the girl who lives opposite them and Eve, who was supposed to be Tyler’s roommate but decided she didn’t want Tyler sharing a room with her. We learnt that Cassie is an only child from a rich family, while Marley’s mother left her and her father when she was young. Marley is also on a lot of medication and is prone to seeing things that aren’t there, but they do seem a little bit like spirits to me. Tyler similarly to Marley lost both of her parents in a car accident and her younger sister is in foster care but she plans to take custody as soon as she can. We don’t know much about Eve but there does seem to be a big event in her past which has led to her new gothic look and bad attitude but not much has been revealed yet.
We learn that Marley and Eve have a lot in common and so do Tyler and Cassie, but it is Cassie who discovers that Marley takes medication for schizophrenia which might explain her hallucinations, but it does genuinely seem that Marley has the ability to see dead people as everyone she sees seems to have been a real person that Marley has no knowledge of prior to seeing them. This starting when Marley was very young, and she has been taking medication for years, but she is hiding it from her new friends to try and have the chance to appear normal, but I have a feeling that it isn’t going to last long now that Cassie knows.
Towards the end of What Doesn’t Kill You, we are introduced to Michael and Christian. Marley seems to know who Christian without having met him before, however, we soon learn Christian is a guardian and he was there to protect all for girls; Marley, Eve, Tyler and Cassie from Michael as they all have mysterious powers. The ending leaves a cliff hanger with Marley, so I had to read Beware the Signs as soon as possible.
Beware The Signs (Twisted Book 2)
The opening of Beware the Signs picked up immediately where What Doesn’t Kill You left off. The girls especially Marley are now having to deal with a ghost version of Christian who is angry that Marley unceremoniously ended his life and now has to get them to finish the job he started but the girls are very reluctant to do that. However, they are willing to look a little closer at their powers and what they mean and how to use them and once again it is the extremely resourceful Eve who comes to save the day in that respect. We are now about halfway through the series and I like grumpy Christian and the plot line with the girls having powers were really interesting and I was looking forward to seeing where this is going.
Learning about their powers was interesting, it seems that Cassie has the ability to change her appearance into someone else as she does it with Marley and Michael. Tyler has the power to alter things on a molecular level as she turns the rain to glass and heats up chemicals until they explode, Eve seems to have a command over the elements and animals in particular moths and finally we know Marley can see and interact with the dead, but I think there is more to it than that.
The ending of Beware the Signs sees the girls primarily looking into what their powers are and what situations bring them out as they can’t seem to control them at all right now. I really like the dynamic between the girls and how their powers seem to be something that actually prevents them from getting to their goals unless they can learn to control them which they need Christian to help them to do it.
See No Evil (Twisted Book 3)
The opening of See No Evil introduces some internal and external conflicts that the girls are going to face, but it seems that the blood moon that is referred so many times seems to have some magical significance. It seems the four girls with powers has also repeated through time even being four sisters or friends. Eve and Tyler seem to have the best grasp on their powers most likely because they have the best grasp on their emotions and do their best not to let things overwhelm them. On the flip side, Cassie and Marley are having real trouble summoning their gifts without actually feeling the emotions that summoned them in the first place namely fear.
The major theme in this book is learning, each of the girls is learning about their gifts and how they can work together in order to keep themselves safe. However, Marley and Cassie are having the most issues and it seems like Cassie might be the one who can be corrupted as she doesn’t have anything driving her except her own desire to be beautiful which Michael might promise to her in order to control and use her against her friends.
We know at the end of this book that Michael is looking for ways to exploit the weaknesses of the girls and he seems to be targeting Tyler who has a younger sister with a kidney issue which makes her an easy target for an exceptionally strong demon like Michael. Michael also seems to know what these girls will be capable of if they have the right training and he wants to stop them before they get that far as his goal is revenge pure and simple, but the question is revenge against who and why has he had to wait three centuries in order to achieve that goal.
Overall, I found these novels to be dark and gritty with a huge paranormal and mystery element to it which I really enjoyed as most paranormal books especially those focusing on angels and demons are overdone but the Twisted Saga felt fresh and new and I’d highly recommend it.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this review copy from Booksprout.
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