Book Review: Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
The fourth book in the Assistant to the Villain series, Adversary to the Villain brought a lot of adventure, romance, and fun moments. Check out my full review for Adversary to the Villain below!
Book Information
Evie and Trystan are working around the clock trying to make sure that the prophecy doesn’t come true. There are traitors in their midst, though, who are thwarting them at every turn. Evie doesn’t know how to deal with the fact that she is the true villain and Trystan is a core healer. But Trystan knows one thing: Evie Sage just became his, and he is NOT going to lose her now.
Review | Heidi Dischler
I feel like this series just continues to drag oooooon. I will say, though, that this one was quite a bit better than Accomplice to the Villain. This one had a lot more stakes, felt very situated in the direction that it wanted to go in, and had a LOT more romance.
The plot focused heavily on Trystan and Evie trying to make sure that the prophecy didn’t come true. Trystan didn’t want to be the one who saved the land from the Villain (which would mean that he had to defeat Evie). Evie didn’t want to be the one destroying Trystan. What follows all of this are a lot of events that are entertaining (for the most part) and fun.
With the romance, you have several couples to root for: Keeley and Gideon, Clare and Tatianna, Alexander and Winnifred, Rebecca and Blade, and, of course, Evie and Trystan. You get a lot more romantic scenes with Trystan and Evie since they finally admitted their feelings for one another. Hardly anything with Alexander and Winnifred. A good bit of Clare and Tatianna. A little of both Rebecca and Blade as well as Keeley and Gideon. In my opinion, there were WAY TOO MANY COUPLES. I love Trystan and Evie. Their romance was all I was really reading for. Everyone else just felt like they got in the way of my main characters.
The romantic stakes were pretty high for this book. Trystan and Evie had the very typical “doomed” romance. I wish Hannah Nicole Maehrer would’ve leaned into this angle more and maybe had gotten a tad bit more serious. Oh well, though. This whole series is written very comedically and not intended to be taken seriously.
Spoilers ahead.
So, the prophecy happens. Alexander Kingsley is the traitor and helps King Benedict fulfill the prophecy. This causes Evie and Trystan to completely forget each other, transforming all of Rennedawn into a completely different world. We get an epilogue to see that side of Rennadawn and the reversal of Evie and Trystan’s entire history together. But don’t fret too much. It was said in the book that they can change the future, but they can’t change what already happened. Soooo Evie and Trystan basically will just have to remember each other.
Overall, I liked this one about as much as I liked Apprentice to the Villain (which was about a 3.5/4 star out of 5 read for me). This one had higher stakes, better direction, and a lot more romance between our main characters. While I still think this series is dragging way too much, this wasn’t a bad read at all.
Source: Personal Copy
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
