Two Twisted Crowns Review: I Fell In Love, Got My Heart Half-Broken, and I Need You To Read This Book Before We Can Be Friends Again

    

    Okay. Okay okay okay. Sit down. Actually no, don't sit down, go find the nearest bookstore, buy the book, and THEN sit down. I finished this book at 1:47 AM and I have not been the same since, and I need to tell you every single reason why, in whatever order it comes out, because if I try to organize my thoughts I will lose momentum and I refuse to lose momentum on this one.

    Welcome back to Poindexter Anonymous, where today we are talking about Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig, and where I, personally, am going to attempt to write a coherent review while also being extremely not coherent about it, because that's just where I'm at. That's the mood. Buckle up.

The Basics, For the Skimmers (I See You)

Rating: 4 out of 5 ⭐ (I’ll explain why, don’t you worry)

Spice: Zero 🌶️ None. This is a slow-burn of the *emotional* variety only, so bring your feelings, not your fan.

Genre: Gothic fantasy / dark fairy tale

Vibe: Foggy moorland + a body count + a love story that makes you feral, all while sounding like it was written by candlelight

Ideal Reader: If you loved One Dark Window (this is the sequel, so, obviously), if you like your fantasy atmospheric and your romance aching rather than steamy, or if you've ever finished a book and immediately needed to talk to a stranger about it (hi, that's me, that's this post)

What Reading This Actually Felt Like

    Okay so. Imagine walking through a forest at dusk, and you know something is following you, and instead of being scared you're just, delighted. That's the whole book. Gillig writes dread that feels cozy, which shouldn't work, and yet… I live with a permanently anxious brain so "cozy dread" is basically my baseline, and this book met me exactly where I live, which was almost unfair honestly.

    The first chunk is a slow creep, not slow like boring, slow like the author is very calmly setting a trap and you are walking directly into it with a big dumb smile on your face because you trust her, and then somewhere around the back half it just goes. Full sprint. No warning. I stayed up way too late reading this, embarrassingly late, the kind of late where the next morning is less "day" and more "vibes," and I regret nothing.

What It's Actually About (No Spoilers, I Promise, I'm a Vault)

    Picking up right where One Dark Window left off, we're back in the cursed kingdom of Blunder, where magic always costs something, monsters wear painfully familiar faces, and our heroine is dealing with a deeply inconvenient roommate situation happening inside her own head (#relatable). The whole book is really about agency; who has it, who's had it stolen from them, what it costs to claw it back. There's a quest. There are Providence Cards. There's political scheming happening under embroidered collars and polite smiles. And there two romances that will wreck you slowly and gently and completely.

    And I have to say this now because I'll forget: the point-of-view structure expands a LOT compared to book one, and it is chef's kiss, fingers-to-lips, whole-hand-gesture for the worldbuilding. More on that in a second because I have Thoughts. Also I wish there were more of it, I am genuinely sad this is only a duology, I would read seventeen more books set in this kingdom and you could not stop me.

Everything That Worked (Which Is Most of It, Let's Be Clear)

The expanded POVs. I need you to understand this wasn't just page-count padding, this genuinely deepened the entire kingdom into something that felt lived-in instead of just a backdrop for one girl's crisis. Every new POV was like someone handed me a flashlight and said "look over here too," and every single time I wanted to. Every time.

The mystery-building (mostly). Gillig plants threads early and lets them just sit there, quietly simmering, and okay, confession, my brain runs on a permanent thread-connecting setting (neurodivergent superpower, fully activated, no notes), so I called both the monster's fate AND the family tie-in well before the reveal. I am not saying this to brag or be That Reader, I promise! I'm saying it because the clues are genuinely THERE, laid down with real intention, and honestly that made me respect the writing more, not less. A book that lets an attentive reader get there early isn't sloppy. It's confident. It trusted its own foreshadowing enough to not need a cheap gasp of a twist.

The romance. Romances. Plural. Because yes, there are two, and I will not apologize for how invested I got in both. I'm a sucker for a love story built on trust and vulnerability instead of bickering-until-they-kiss (no shade, I love that trope too when it's done well, I contain multitudes), and my central couple's dynamic genuinely destroyed me. Watching two people try to hold onto each other while the entire structure of the world is working against it, I felt that in my ribs.

The atmosphere. This book smells like something, I don't know how else to say it. Woodsmoke, old stone, something faintly metallic underneath. Gillig's prose is doing so much heavy lifting for mood that you could strip out half the plot and I would still be sitting here going "mmm, gothic," completely satisfied, no notes.

The side cast. Okay wait, I need a whole paragraph for this, hold on. I did not go into this book expecting to be this emotionally invested in people who are not the main couple, and yet here we are, and I refuse to be normal about it. There's a whole crew of secondary characters, hunting parties, siblings, found-family types, who get real, breathing personalities instead of just existing to move the plot along or die dramatically on schedule (although, listen, some may or may not die dramatically. Who’s to say, I don’t spoil). The sibling banter alone had me cackling out loud on public transit, which is always a little embarrassing but also, worth it. These are not cardboard side quest NPCs. These are people I would trauma-bond with in a group chat.

The humor, actually, in general. I don't think I properly bragged about this yet, so, this is a genuinely dark book, we are talking curses and infections and body horror-adjacent stuff, and yet Gillig somehow keeps threading in these dry, perfectly timed one-liners that made me laugh out loud in the middle of scenes that had no business being funny. It's the kind of dark humor that comes from trauma; that people who have lived sheltered lives will absolutely judge you for laughing at, but it’s the most honest type of humour. And let’s be real, we laugh so we don’t cry.

The Nightmare and his prisoner. There is a dynamic in this book, between a person and the thing sharing space in her own head, that is somehow tender AND deeply unsettling AND weirdly, upsettingly compelling, sometimes all in the same page. I kept flip-flopping on how I felt about it, which I think was entirely the point, and I have never been more delighted to be manipulated by an author's pacing. It's doing so much thematic work about identity and autonomy without ever once feeling like homework, which, again, chef's kiss.

The action sequences, genuinely. I don't always talk about this in reviews because half the time fantasy action reads like stage directions to me and I zone out, but there are a couple of set pieces in this book (I won't say where, I won't say what, I am a vault, I told you) that had my heart actually pounding. Real, physical, could-not-put-the-book-down tension. The kind where you're gripping the book slightly too hard and your hand cramps and you don't even notice until later.

Now Let Me Complain For a Second (Respectfully)

    Here's where I put the pom-poms down. Just for a minute. The ending did not fully stick the landing for me, and I need to talk about it without spoiling it, which is a genuine tightrope walk, so bear with me. I fell HARD for our central couple, and the second our heroine got her agency back, I was starving, starving, for a real, breathing-room reunion between them. A scene where they just get to exist together, unburdened, and actually process everything they went through. Instead that moment gets compressed down into something way smaller than the emotional debt this book had been racking up for four hundred-plus pages. It's not that the ending is bad. It's that it cashed a check the earlier chapters wrote, and I wanted the full amount, not a portion of the proceeds. I closed this book feeling a little robbed, ngl.

Favorite Moments (Still No Spoilers, I Am a Vault, I Told You)

    Any scene where the expanded cast gets to just bounce off each other, the found-family energy tucked into the margins of this very dark book is doing so much quiet, wonderful work and I will not be stopped from mentioning it.

    The moment those mystery threads I called early finally converge on the page. Even having guessed it, watching it actually land was deeply, deeply satisfying.

    Basically any interaction between our leads. I refuse to elaborate. I refuse. Go read it.

    And if you're one of those people who reads the last page first (why. genuinely why. we need to talk) go check out my YouTube where I dive all the way into the spoiler pool, deep end, no floaties.

So, The Verdict, Since You've Made It This Far  

    Four stars. An honest four, not a "rounding up because I like the vibes" four. This book built a genuinely rich, expanding world, gave me a romance (romances!) I will be thinking about for weeks, let my brain feel smart for catching its threads early, and then pulled the rug out slightly right at the finish line by not giving me the full emotional reunion I had been promised, page after page, chapter after chapter. I wanted to sit in that relief with these characters. I got a taste instead of a meal, and I am still a little bit in my feelings about it, if that wasn't already extremely obvious.

    But here's the thing about a book that frustrates you BECAUSE you love it so much, that's not a failure. That's the author doing their job. I don't get worked up about lukewarm books, I genuinely can't be bothered. I only get worked up about the ones that made me care enough to want more. Rachel Gillig has officially, permanently earned a spot on my must-buy list. I will be buying anything with her name on the spine from now on, sight unseen, full price, no questions asked, I already added The Knight and the Moth to my cart before I'd even finished processing my feelings about this one, so. That should tell you everything.

    Should you read Two Twisted Crowns? Yes. Immediately. Put down whatever you're doing. I mean it. We are not friends until you've read this book, I've decided, this is the hill.

Okay, Fine, Here's How to Actually Get It

    These are affiliate links, you don't have to use them, you can absolutely just google the books and buy them wherever, no hard feelings. But the economy is rough out here and I'm hoping you like this blog enough to throw a little support my way. You can grab both books here. The kindle edition is available for an "on the go" read, here. 

    If you're an audiobook person, this one's available in audio too, and honestly I think the atmosphere might hit even harder read aloud, you can check it out here.   

    Loved the atmosphere and the slow-burn dread? I'd also recommend anything gothic-adjacent with a dash of fae-tale menace, my TBR currently has a suspicious number of moody forests and cursed kingdoms in it, we'll get there. Follow me on Fable, StoryGraph, and/or Goodreads if you want to keep up with what I'm reading in real time. And if you want a full comparison post between this and other gothic fantasy favorites, let me know in the comments, I will absolutely nerd out about it, just say the word.

    Now go read it. Come back. Yell at me in the comments about the ending, I already know you're going to, I'll be right here waiting, book bestie.

— Poindexter Anonymous 🖤 

Did I miss anything? Was the ending satisfying for you? Drop you thoughts in the comments, but be respectful of others, if you're going to talk about specifics, disclaim your spoilers. And if you want more posts like this landing in your inbox (plus the occasional unhinged recommendation), subscribe to the newsletter below.