I have read all of Cora Reilly's mafia books. Most I really enjoy, others are just okay, and a few I do not have any interest in rereading. Unfortunately, Twisted Cravings lands in the latter of those three. This book was a disappointment. I did not have any real expectations of what the story would entail, but what Reilly wrote left a lot to be desired.

One positive aspect of this story was the pacing of Dinara and Adamo's relationship was good. In the last couple of books, Cora Reilly has spent too much of the plot before the two main characters' relationship develops, and I have not enjoyed that. This book does not have that issue with Dinara and Adamo entering a relationship in the first third of the book. Also, what little we saw of the Falcone clan was good; it was pretty cute; however, it honestly feels as if Adamo is not a part of this family.

The majority of the book takes place in Camp, the settlement of race car drivers, during their racing season. While the first couple of races were interesting to read about, they got old fast. The book felt repetitive, with Adamo and Dinara continually leaving Camp to return to Chicago or Vegas. Also, I am still a little confused about Dinara's motives to join the races and why her father is okay with her driving. There seems to be a dichotomy between him wanting to protect her and letting Dinara do whatever the hell she wants.

Reilly has created what seems to be two different Remos, the Remo from his own book or Nino's books and then the Remo you see in Twisted Cravings and in parts Twisted Hearts. I understand that Remo is supposed to act differently with people outside his family, but he does not act the same way in this book with Adamo as he does with Nino, Savio, or even a younger Adamo. This book made me miss the old Remo.

The grammar in this book was not good. I am not very good a writing grammatically correct, it is not something I would normally notice while reading books, but I did. To me, that signals that in the beginning, the book was poorly written.

Probably the biggest reason I did not enjoy this book was, the reader knows nothing about Dinara. We are given one line of information about her, but nothing is expanded on. The reader does not even know why/when Dinara learned to race. Towards the end of the book, Dinara makes a point of saying people do not tend to like her or that she is not very social. This did not line up with the personality presented to the reader throughout the book. Nothing about her was very off-putting that would make me think that she is an unlikeable person. By the end of the book, it feels as if the only thing the reader really knows about Dinara is that she is an abuse survivor.

When I do not enjoy Reilly's books, it's because I do not feel connected to the characters in the story, or I dislike the main character (Gianna). In Twisted Cravings I wasn't given the chance to like any of the characters, because I learned almost nothing about them. Anything I know about Adamo comes from previous books. Dinara's story was never fleshed out. This book had so much potential to be good, but the story just wasn't. Nothing about it was enough. The reader didn't get enough details in the Dinara's backstory, not just the abuse, but the aftermath. We learned absolutely nothing about Adamo's time in New York, and Adamo doesn't feel like a member of the Falcone family anymore.

While this might not be my least favorite mafia story written by Cora Reilly, I do think its the worst written story out of the Bound by and Camorra Chronicles. It was just disappointing across the board.
Two Stars