Summaries & Analyses
Author Insights
NEWQuizzes
NEWReading Tools
Ana Huang on Twisted Hate
In her own words: quotes and insights from the author.Why she wrote it
Seeds planted in someone else’s storyThe Twisted series is built around four close friends, one couple per book, which meant Josh and Jules were locked in as protagonists from the moment Huang laid out the structure. The trope was the first thing she settled on, long before she knew what would actually happen between them.
I knew Twisted Hate was going to be enemies to lovers, but I don’t actually know how the story will unfold until I sit down and plan out that specific title. [paraphrased from audio]
Josh had already appeared across the first two books, protective and combative, before either he or Jules had their own story. That slow accumulation across earlier installments is how Huang thinks about characters who eventually earn a book of their own.
Sometimes I will get these side characters and I’m like, Wow, they’re really interesting. They’re kind of planted as seeds as in maybe one day they will get a book.
Josh Chen was one of those seeds, visible in the background of two earlier love stories before Huang finally brought him forward as a lead in his own right.
The interconnected structure is also what keeps readers moving through the series. Returning characters aren’t just cameos; they carry the emotional continuity of the whole project.
I just love being able to follow the story of a new couple, but also see like glimpses of previous characters and what their happily ever afters look like. It’s kind of like running into old friends. [paraphrased from audio]
How she wrote it
Skeleton first, darkness secondBefore Huang writes a single scene, she and her content editor map the architecture of the book together. Once the major beats are agreed on, she shifts into a mode designed to defeat hesitation rather than produce polish.
I work with my content editor to flesh out major beats like the meet cute, conflict, and resolution, and then I do a skeleton draft. That means I just write with the goal of getting to the end as fast as possible. If I hit a scene, word, or description that I can’t think of in the moment, I put a placeholder and go back to it later.
beccavry.wordpress.com, “Ana Huang Interview - becca vry - WordPress.com”The placeholder system extends to the book’s intimate scenes. Huang doesn’t treat them as a craft problem to solve in the flow of drafting; she treats them as a state problem, something to return to when she’s in a different register entirely.
When it comes time if I’m writing a book and I hit a sex scene, I put a placeholder, and I come back and I fill it in. I just have to be in a little bit of a different headspace to write them.
Twisted Hate arrived as the third book in the series, but within Huang’s own body of work it occupies a specific and deliberate register. She was conscious of the tonal difference between this series and her other projects when she was writing it.
[The Twisted series] actually [is] the darkest out of all my series... Twisted definitely has like the darkest themes and the most plot twists, I think. [paraphrased from audio]
The If Love books, she has said, are considerably more wholesome, and her Kings of Sin series lands somewhere between the two. Twisted Hate sits at the darker end of everything she had written at the time of its publication.
The personal thread
A Chinese American author writes a Chinese American leadJosh Chen is one of Huang’s few explicitly Asian American male protagonists. The choice connects directly to her own background: she is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and began writing in English as a child at her mother’s encouragement.
I always try to make the cast reflect the world that we’re in, and that is a very diverse world — especially because my books are set in cities like DC and New York. I want to represent that range of experiences, because that is just what the world is. As a Chinese American, I can write the most about that experience.
The female friendships in the series are equally personal. Jules and Ava’s closeness is what places Jules in Josh’s orbit at all; without it there is no romantic setup. Huang has been consistent about why those friendships appear in every book she writes.
I love the found family trope in fiction and usually write stories that feature close friend groups, especially those with strong, supportive female friendships.
What she wants us to sit with
A guaranteed ending in a chaotic worldRomance as a genre makes a promise no other genre is obligated to keep. Huang has thought about why that promise matters to readers right now, and her answer is less about escapism than about reliable emotional architecture.
I think especially in today’s world where everything is so chaotic and messy at times, there is a comfort in reading a genre where, no matter what happens, how messy or how hard things get, there is always a happily ever after.
Josh is positioned in the book as a morally grey alpha: combative, sharp, not straightforwardly good. Huang writes that type often, but she holds one line constant across every version of it.
For me, I’m also very conscious that no matter what kind of hero I write — they tend to be on the ‘morally grey’ alpha spectrum or a bit gentler — what they have in common is that they always treat love interests with respect. They will never cheat on them, and even if they make stupid mistakes, they will always regret it and try to become a better person.