Twisted Hate is for readers who want an enemies-with-benefits romance in which both people have demanding careers, a friend-group tie they cannot ignore, and a set of rules that is clearly going to be tested. Ana Huang’s book is the third in her Twisted series and, according to the publisher, can be read on its own.
Rules written by two people who do not like each other
The Hachette UK description starts with Josh Chen, a charming aspiring doctor who has never met a woman he could not charm, with one exception: Jules Ambrose, a redheaded former party girl who is now studying for the bar exam. The description also calls Josh her best friend’s brother, which suggests the pair have a reason to keep running into each other even when they would rather not.
Their rivalry leads to one night together. Josh then proposes an enemies-with-benefits arrangement, with simple rules designed to get her out of his system. As Jules gets to know him, she sees a side of him she did not expect, and the description closes by saying that old secrets resurface and that the truths that come out could either bring them together or ruin what they have built. Hachette files the book under Adult & Contemporary Romance.
Two details in the wording are worth holding onto. The rules are described as simple, and their purpose is stated from Josh’s side: to get her out of his system. That makes the arrangement his plan before it is a shared one, so a good test of the book is whether Jules shapes the terms or only accepts them. The description also says Jules comes to see an unexpected side of him, which is where the emotional turn is signaled.
You’re on the list. Your free stories are waiting in the Reader Vault. The Night Ward
Banter, ambition and the emotional turn
The question for this book is whether the hostility and the professional pressures make the eventual change of heart convincing. The description shows the ingredients. Josh’s medical training and Jules’s bar exam are not decoration: each is a demanding path with its own deadlines. A rule-bound affair between two people with little spare time is a neat engine for a romance, because the rules are what you break by making time for each other.
The listing does not describe the tone of their exchanges, and it does not mention banter by name, so how funny or sharp the hostility is remains for the opening chapters to show. What it does say is that Josh expects charm to work on everyone, and that Jules is the one person it does not work on. That is a promising source of friction, since a character who gets what he wants is more interesting when he does not. It also means the reader is invited to watch for the point at which his strategy, getting her out of his system, stops being a strategy.
The Twisted line and the author
Hachette names Twisted Hate as book three of the Twisted series, with Twisted Love, Twisted Games and Twisted Lies as the other titles, and its blurb says it can be read as a standalone. The author’s series page lists four books and describes the series as New Adult romances with steam, suspense and darker themes. Her about page calls her a #1 bestselling author with more than 25 million copies sold worldwide, and says her contemporary romances span sports, billionaire and suspense subgenres.
The edition on the Hachette page is a collector’s hardcover with designed edges, gold foil and exclusive art, with paperback and ebook editions listed separately. The page does not say which point of view the story uses, so if first or third person, or single or dual perspective, matters to you, check a sample.
For a reader deciding where to begin, the practical point is that this volume is offered as readable alone. The description itself sets up Josh and Jules without needing earlier books, apart from Josh being her best friend’s brother, which the blurb introduces. New readers are not told they need the earlier titles.
What readers and bloggers praise about Twisted Hate
Romance bloggers who rate Twisted Hate highly point first to the chemistry between Jules and Josh and the enemies-to-lovers tension that carries it. One four-star blog review praises Josh as perceptive enough to see past Jules’s defenses, protective and confidently flirtatious, and likes that Jules is a strong heroine with goals and a loyal friendship rather than a meek one. The same reviewer calls the writing great, enjoys the characters’ backstories and says a twist about Jules’s past was a surprise. Reader quotes on the publisher’s listing say the book left them emotionally wrung out in a good way, lived up to the author’s reputation for billionaire and contemporary romance, and gave morally grey fans a hero worth swooning over. A fellow romance author quoted there says the book left her with strong emotional reactions and no notes. One blogger found it easy to follow after reading only the previous Twisted book.
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What the author’s content notes list
Ana Huang publishes content notes on her site, and the list for Twisted Hate has seven items: abusive parents, blackmail, the death of a parent, the death of a minor (a small scene), mildly dubious consent (one scene), sexual harassment and stalking. The Hachette page itself lists no content notes.
These notes are the author’s own and are the better guide than the genre label. They are not a comprehensive inventory. Consult the notes in the current edition for your own limits.
Who will enjoy it, and what to test
It suits readers who like an agreement-gone-wrong structure, ambitious leads, and a romance in which both leads are on professional tracks that leave little room for feelings. It may not suit readers who want a hospital-set workplace romance: the description gives Josh a medical career, but it does not place the couple in a hospital. Nor will it suit anyone for whom the list above includes a hard stop. In the first chapters, look for:
- The rivalry: do their first scenes show a believable history of irritation, or only assert one?
- The rules: are they specific enough that breaking them will matter?
- Jules’s exam: does her preparation shape her days, or does it disappear once the plot starts?
- The friend connection: how much does the best friend’s brother tie complicate things for each of them?
Reading alongside The Hating Game
Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game is a useful contrast. Hachette describes Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman as colleagues who sit across from each other at work and openly hate each other, until they both go for the same promotion and Lucy, who usually works hard to please people, decides to outmaneuver him. The rivalry there grows from a shared office and a career prize. In Twisted Hate it starts from a different place: Josh being her best friend’s brother, a no-strings agreement and two careers that run in parallel rather than head to head.
From Alisson Bento: a darker doctor story and a records mystery
The Surgeon’s Prize introduces patient Imogen under Dr. Merrick Baines’s examination, followed by his fixation and an instruction to erase records. It shares only a medically powerful romantic figure and is a materially darker doctor-patient thriller than Josh and Jules’s casual arrangement, and it is not connected to Ana Huang’s Twisted series. Browse the medical romance shelf for other options. The free story The Night Ward pairs whistleblower Mara Venn and toxicologist Silas Rook around lost records at the Bell Institute; neither is the other’s patient. This original couple precedes Cold Hands, Dark Heart, with intimacy off-page. Read online; email access unlocks later chapters.
Sources checked 20–21 October 2026. Comparisons concern advertised premises and promise no matching heat, consent dynamics or endings.
