{"id":10642,"date":"2023-10-02T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10642"},"modified":"2023-10-01T19:56:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T23:56:48","slug":"a-twisted-love-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10642","title":{"rendered":"A Twisted Love Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If only the main characters of Samantha Downing\u2019s new psychological suspense thriller, A Twisted Love Story<\/em>, would tell the truth once in a while, a lot of their problems would be solved and maybe even avoided. Wes Harmon and Ivy Banks have been an on-again, off-again couple for almost a decade\u2014ever since college\u2014and their breakups are every bit as passionate as their reunions. But if they each harbor secrets, they also share a growing list of them. And those shared secrets put them on a slippery path leading straight to prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on, Wes meets the couple\u2019s main antagonist, Karen Colglazier. She\u2019s a detective with the Sex Crimes Unit of Fair Valley, California, the featureless mid-sized town where Wes and Ivy live. It seems Ivy has accused him of stalking her and described to Colglazier the ominous notes, presents\u2014including a box of half-eaten chocolates\u2014and pictures, she\u2019s been receiving. Nothing against the law, technically. Not so far, but Colglazier believes a visit from the police often puts a stop to such low-level harassment. Wes denies doing any of it, but then he would, wouldn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ivy, fierce and funny, has perhaps the weakest impulse control you\u2019ll ever encounter in fiction, and Wes believes that reporting the alleged stalking was her way of getting his attention. In the past, she\u2019s used some dramatic, even damaging, ways to do that. He\u2019s obviously on Ivy\u2019s mind because when he shows up at her apartment the night of Colglazier\u2019s visit, she gives every indication she was expecting him. The relationship, heavily burdened with the baggage of past mistakes, is on again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detective Colglazier is far from convinced by Ivy\u2019s new forgiving attitude toward Wes. She believes Ivy\u2019s denials are further evidence of how afraid and beaten down she is. Her prominent blind spot may be in the wrong place in this instance, but her instinct that more is going on here than meets the eye is correct. Wes and Ivy may seem doomed to keep reenacting their breakups and reconciliations, but it\u2019s Colglazier\u2019s doggedness that creates the book\u2019s tension. Can they ever be free of their past mistakes without being free of each other? If you like thrillers involving dangerous secrets and struggling relationships, this may be a good book for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samantha Downing, born in California, has made a specialty of psychological suspense since her successful 2019 debut novel, My Lovely Wife<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for Great Reading? My best recommendations are in my quarterly newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> and receive three prize-winning short stories!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If only the main characters of Samantha Downing\u2019s new psychological suspense thriller, A Twisted Love Story, would tell the truth once in a while, a lot of their problems would be solved and maybe even avoided. Wes Harmon and Ivy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Love psychological suspense where a couple's secrets balloon out of control? Try A Twisted Love Story.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,126,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detective","category-reading-2","category-thriller"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2LE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10644,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions\/10644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}