Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK, Orbit, and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book for an honest review.

What an absolutely wild ride. Campy and irreverent, a portal fantasy that was packed full of twists that genuinely took me by surprise.

”At least seventy percent of villainy was the aesthetic.”

I’ll start off by placing heavy emphasis on the fact that my star rating does not give a complete picture of my journey with this book. The second half of the book is absolutely 5 star standard, brilliant plotting. However, the first 25% of the book was such a profound 1 star (if even that) - at times I was left wondering whether I was mid-stroke with how incomprehensible both the writing and story were. If not for my “at least a third” rule for DNFing books, I definitely would have put this one down. I read this sentence no less than 15 times before beginning to grasp what its meaning was:

“And, Rae recalled with a shock like walking down the steps she relied on at night only to find air instead of a stair, a new guard suggested how the lady should be punished.”

Baffling! My issues with the start of this novel are many. Lots of talking head, white room syndrome happening - it’s often unclear where a scene is taking place or who is in it until they pop up in dialogue. Action occurs in quick succession, and jumps between present action, and characters reminiscing with no warning. This continues throughout the book, but is most jarring when you begin reading as it isn’t marked out conventionally with section breaks or italicisation. This is worsened by occasional continuity errors.

There is little explanation of why our main character Rae is thrown into the story, and by whom. I can only hope light will be shed on this in future installations! I also wish the world she’s thrown into was never introduced as being from Rae’s favourite book (why not her sister’s?), given she knows so little about it - this is very easy to overlook, however, especially as the story progresses. This book is extremely fast paced, so expect to be thrown into the action with little warning of new characters or background on world building.

Aside from the rough start, this story is brilliantly engaging. The dialogue is sharp, sarcastic, and may not appeal to everyone’s taste or humour. I appreciated that this was a story that didn’t lack in substance, but certainly didn’t take itself too seriously. Long Live Evil’s true strength lies with its characters, each of which shines beautifully. Inter-character relationships were believable and I found myself so invested in them, especially the sister dynamics of Rahela and Lia.

I will absolutely be looking forward to reading what comes next after that delicious cliffhanger!

This book caught my attention with its premise and I couldn’t help but request an eARC. Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing it to me!

Twenty year old Rae is on the brink of death after a long fight with cancer. Before she dies, however, she is offered a mysterious choice: If she enters the world of her favorite book series and fulfills a mission, she will be healed and return to her old life. This sounds far too good to be true, because when she wakes up in the book world, she occupies the body of Lady Rahela - one of the villains, and one of the first to die. However, if she already is evil, why not make use of it? This is how she starts her ruthless intrigues with only one goal: To make it back home.

I am a big enjoyer of stories where a protagonist travels from our world into a fictional one. It’s usually just webtoons or anime that provide me with this specific trope, so seeing it utilized in a book piqued my interest. And it is wonderfully adapted! There are small quotes of the original novel at the beginning of every chapter, and it’s a lot of fun to see how the story that Rae is in slowly diverts from the original.

This keeps the suspense constantly high. How far can Rae manipulate the other characters without throwing the whole plot entirely into chaos? How can she stay alive in a cut-throat royal court where death looms from all corners? She is, after all, in a dark fantasy world with plenty of assassins and the undead. Towards the end, it did annoy me that Rae still assumes she knows everything about the book, no matter how clearly she has already changed characters and plot threads. Her insistence on and trust in the original plot simply doesn’t make sense at times, after so many changes to the story that she knew have occurred. Luckily, the last fantastic plot twist does not suffer from this aspect at all. That alone made me forgive any annoyance I have had at this point!

The side characters show a wonderful evolution from their vaguely described tropes to actual human people. The occasional shifts in PoV illustrate this beautifully and also gave interesting new perspectives. I also adored Rae’s inner conflict about accepting the other characters as real people. It is far too easy to be evil when the sacrifices of your actions are only fictional people. But are they still only fictional if she can befriend them and uncover hidden depths?

The writing style feels very modern and humorous, although not all of the jokes worked for me. The clash between Rae’s modern view point and the high fantasy setting is quite intentional, but some of the comments and references felt a bit too forced to me. Some of Rae’s monologues also didn’t feel authentic, even though, to be fair - at that point she is already inside the book, so expecting realism might be asking a bit too much. Other than those few moments that made me roll my eyes, I did enjoy a lot of the dialogue, so it is probably just a matter of personal taste. It also lightens up the otherwise dark mood tremendously, which is a big relief.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed my time reading this book! It’s funny, gripping, a little absurd and deals with topics close to my heart when it comes to loving books and wanting to become part of their worlds. It also has this energy of defiantly reclaiming your will to live, no matter the consequences, which kept me coming back to it. The cliff hanger is just as evil as this book, though, so beware of that. Other than that, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoys villains and the dark side of things, who loves witty and snarky protagonists and who just wants to crawl into their favorite novel sometimes!

2 stars.

This is an honest review and is what I experienced with the book which is a unique opinion. I was interested in this book because I had seen it about on social media, the cover is cool and the premise sounded interesting but overall I found it a bit confusing, with too much going on. I initially found the language contrast between Rae and the book characters was well written but it quickly became a bit cringey for me.

I do really like the cover, and enjoyed the character Key, but sadly this time this book wasn’t for me. I wish the author luck with it though!

I picked this up because it was such an interesting unique premise and I was very curious to delve in.

It’s starts off a little slow and confusing. Once Rae falls into the story, we get introduced to a lot of characters with differing motivations (the ones that Rae remembers form the story) and the reality of who they are. As their backstories emerge, they gain more definition and change which Rae for the most part refuses to recognise or acknowledge.

I was tempted to DNF but then we meet the Cobra and he is just fun and breathes life into the book (and the book within the book) and shakes all the characters up. By the time we have our Den of Vipers, I’m invested and overlooking the language, the writing and plot holes (take your pick which book I’m referring to). I have an appreciation for Meta but have mixed feelings about the way this was handled.

Overall I enjoyed this and would continue the series but can see that it won’t be for everyone. 3/5 stars

1★

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc of this book.

I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this at all. When I first saw the cover and read the blurb, it really intrigued me, but somehow it felt like a completely different thing.

Let’s start with what I did like, and that is... the cover. Gorgeous art! I wish I had that on my shelf, but it is what it is.

Now for the stuff I didn’t like, and there were many. First of all, the writing. I really disliked everything about it. It was so awkwardly written. Words repeated in a single sentence. Some sentences felt like nonsense. The dialogue was awkward and forced. I understand that Rae was from the modern world, but whenever she started speaking, I wanted to close the book. It was awful and out of place. And don’t even get me started on how many times she mentioned how big her boobs were, how off balance they made her, how good her eyeliner game was, and how evil she was. (And I won’t even talk about Jesus and Batman, that was so cringe.)

Overall, this read like a child or a teenager wrote it. I guess some parts were supposed to be funny but felt too juvenile. How is this in the adult section? It could barely pass as a young adult. It’s too childish.

The characters were just… boring. I don’t even know what to say about them. I didn’t like a single one.

I honestly hated this so much I skimmed most of it. I genuinely wanted to give this a go. I read up to 5% and already knew I didn’t like it. But I thought I’d give it a proper chance because maybe I could be wrong. So I read some more… But the more I read, the more I hated it. Skimmed the rest. Still hated it.

There’s not a single thing I liked - except for the cover. In my eyes, this is not a good book. The blurb sounded amazing, something for me. But no. I did not enjoy this.

Rae knows she’s dying. After years of gruelling cancer treatment, her body is finally giving in. Her friends, her boyfriend, even her father, have all left her. The one good thing left in her life is her sister, and their shared love for the Time of Iron fantasy series. Then a mysterious woman visits her hospital bed with an offer; enter the world of her favourite books and retrieve the Flower of Life and Death, and she will wake up cured. Fail, and she will die. Since she’s dying anyway, she has nothing to lose.

When she wakes up in Eyam, she finds herself in the body of villainess Lady Rahela, also known as the Beauty Dipped in Blood. Everyone knows the villains have the most fun, and get the best outfits, so she embraces her role and sets out to find the flower.

Long Live Evil is pure, tropelicious fun, complete with starry-eyed heroes and hideous monsters. Rae thinks she knows what’s going to happen, and treats the characters like they’re not real people, because to her, they’re not. They come from the imagination of an anonymous writer. Who cares, if they get hurt along the way? And being evil is so much fun.

I was a bit concerned at the start that it was going to be reliant on my absorbing the whole fictional book series straight away. What really helped was the fact that Rae was a bit lost too. She had lied to her sister about reading the first book. When it was read to her in her hospital bed, she understandably didn’t pay attention to all of it. She knew where the story was going, but not how it got there. So when she falls into the plot of the first book, she’s not got all her facts straight.

The characters of Eyam do start out as stereotypes of epic fantasy, but as Rae starts to change the narrative, they start to grow as people—though at times they still have literal starry eyes. I started having fun and along the way, I came to care about the characters too.

While it’s mostly fun, there are some serious moments too. One of the reasons Rae identifies so much with the villains is the treatment she’s received in the real world. Villains are often born out of a traumatic experience, and she knows what it’s like for people to reject you for things outside of your control. It touches a little on the ableism involved with villains showing their evilness in their outward appearance. Knowing that Sarah Rees Brennan is a cancer survivor, adds weight to Rae’s experience, and explains where a lot of the story is coming from.

But mostly, it’s just rip-roaring fun.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

This was a 2024 release I was really looking forward to, so I was super excited to be given an ARC, but unfortunately I just couldn't get through this book. I don't think this is necessarily a bad book, I just don't think I'm the right audience for it.

I found this book very hard to get into. I didn't think the prose was particularly strong, and there was too much telling and not showing for my liking. It felt as if the author felt the need to hold the reader's hand to guide them through the story. The first chapter in particular is really had to get through, and I think it really lets the book down as an opening chapter. An opening chapter is supposed to intrigue a reader and get them hooked, but it had the opposite effect on me. I felt this book was weirdly paced and structured, which left me feeling confused, and that there was too much info-dumping, especially so early on in a book. I just found this book very hard to read.

I do think it has some potential, and some jokes did make me smile or chuckle, but that wasn't enough for me to keep reading unfortunately.

There's definitely going to be an audience for this book, unfortunately that audience just doesn't include me.

I had seen Long Live Evil knocking around on socials and thought the premise sounded like something I would really enjoy so naturally I decided to give it a go. Sadly, it wasn’t for me at all. I didn’t like the characters or the style of writing unfortunately!

I am aware that so many people absolutely adore this book and what it is doing - which makes me all the more sad that it wasn't for me, even though the concept seemed to be made for me.
This story had so much potential. The meta of it all, the story-in-story, the fish-out-of-water, the humor, the sadness of reality, the fighting of sickness.... There could have been so many layers to fill with awesomeness, but sadly I just couldn't see it.
I thought it genius to make the writing style plain, full of cliches - I thought it was to stress the point of this narrative. And maybe it was, but it just wasn't brought to term in my opinion.
About 50% in I had given up looking for deeper meaning or a message apart from the obvious.
It's still a fun story you can enjoy, sadly it wasn't enough to hold my attention.

3/5 stars for being unique.

Thank you @netgalley and @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for the eARC!

#Netgalley #Bookstagram #LongLiveEvil

I love love love this. This is a brilliant take on the villain story. I wish there was more to this. The twist and humour are spot on. I read this in a day. Could not put it down

✨2 stars✨

I was really excited to receive the ARC for this book because the premise sounded really interesting! Rae wakes up in her favourite fantasy book but instead of in the heroine’s place, she finds herself as the villain. This would have left a lot of avenues for the author to explore.

However, I really did not enjoy the writing. This is the first book I have read by this author so I’m not 100% sure whether her writing is always like this or whether is was the choices in this book that felt especially jarring and like the author was trying to sound “cool”.

🚨Potential Spoilers: This part of the review will now include quotes🚨



Examples of the questionable dialogue:
- “My family motto is he came, he saw, I conquered.”
- “seriously, you will be powerful A.F.” 🤮
- “Lady Rahela punched the air in triumph. ‘Boom,’ declared Rae. ‘Holy Prophecy.’”
-“Now Rae made the toast her bitch.”
-“Shots fired. Literally.”
-“Sorry but the old Rahela can’t come to the phone right now.”
-“The emperor had daddy issues.”
-“Rae turned her throaty purr thrilling.”
-“They were in public! Villains were off the chain.”

These were just a few examples. I understand that it was supposed to be a modern-day girl being transported into a fantasy book but honestly what 20 year old actually speaks like that?

I’m also confused about the categorisation of this book because it reads incredibly young but is supposed to be an adult fantasy according to the Waterstones website but I might be wrong.

The whole reason Rae is transported is so she can attempt to find a flower (which of course if she managed it she would be the first to do so🙄).

Overall I was really disappointed with this book and probably won’t pick up anymore in the series.

I received an ARC from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Long Live Evil is the first book in the Time of Iron series. The story follows Rae, who lives in our world and her life is completely falling apart. After making a magical bargain, she is transported to her favorite fantastical world, but not as a heroine - instead, she finds herself as a villainess. This book is so much fun to read and I can't remember how many times I laugh out loud. The plot is fantastic and the characters are well-developed. If you're looking for a chaotic and humorous fantasy book, I highly recommend picking this one up. I loved it and can't wait to read the next book in the series. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an early copy.

Thank you to the publisher for the earc!

“What would you do if you were transported into your favorite book?” is one of the most asked questions in bookish circles. A very common answer is “Well, I’d enjoy the last 5 minutes of my life.” In Long Live Evil Rae gets the chance to live within her favorite book. She has to get a magical flower that can heal her or she’ll be stuck inside the book forever. Unfortunately for her, she wakes up in the body of a soon-to-be-executed lady, which complicates things. She has to find allies, who can help her, but the question is, how well can you know the characters of a book?

I had such high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it didn’t deliver. The idea was so interesting, but it was executed poorly. Too many times I couldn’t follow what’s going on, the sentences made no sense. Many times I write it off as English being my second language, but after a certain point I can’t blame it on this fact anymore. Sometimes characters were at one location, but in the next moment they were at a completely different place with no explanation how they got there. I wish this book had one more round of editing for these kind of issues. Because they sound insignificant, but it interrupts the reading experience and no matter how much you want, you can’t enjoy the book. And let’s not mention the glaring plot holes, because there were a few.

I wasn’t a fan of the characters, mostly because we had 2 different versions of them. One lived in Rae’s mind, and one in the book. And this is the thing that annoyed me the most during the book, how is it possible that she knows nothing about the characters? The way she expected them to act and the way they actually acted were so different. If it’s your favorite book, you know the characters as well as the back of your hands. Or not? The only character I loved was Key. He was crazy, had a death wish, and thought everything can be solved with violence or murder.

<spoiler>And here is my biggest issue with Rae. How is it possible that she didn’t realize while reading the books that the King and the Emperor are 2 different men? It just doesn’t make sense to me.</spoiler>

The only good thing that I can say about this book, that it was funny. It did not balance out the problems, but at least I got to laugh on many occasion.

If I want to be completely honest, I would not recommend this book. It is possible the series will get better, but right now I don’t see that. I'll probably continue the series, mostly because I hate unfinished series, and also the last chapter was interesting enough.

This book was a fun and entertaining romp with an original premise - what would happen if you found yourself cast within your favourite fantasy novel? Would you change the storyline or would you try to stick to the script? What are the characters really like outside of the narrative slant?

Add to this the fact that our protagonist has been put in the body of a minor villain and you have an interesting set up indeed.

I found this funny, original, very camp and witty. However, there were parts that dragged, it did not keep up the momentum all the way through, which is why it didn’t get a full star rating.

This is a cozy hug from a quaint village, spiced up with just the right amount of drama to keep you hooked, plus a sweet romance subplot.
While the romance storyline was enjoyable, the themes of friendship and found family truly shine in this story.
The intricate world-building introduces so much whimsy, including sentient house plants, winged cats, merhorses, mermaids, unicorns, and spirit bears; I wanted nothing more than to escape into this story.
Kiela, the protagonist, is a lovable character reminiscent of Emily from Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Her socially awkward, prickly, and homebody nature adds depth to her character development as she gradually opens up to the community, forms meaningful friendships, and earns their unwavering loyalty.
Caz, the spider plant, was easily my favourite character, full of the best witty banter.
A must-read standalone for those who enjoyed Legends & Lattes / Bookshops and Bonedust / the Emily Wilde series.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Brilliant cover and title, it will attract many readers!

Rae is about to die from cancer. Her sister is obsessed with a book series and it was so cute that she read it to Rae. Rae becomes a fan of it too but she’s mostly angry about her situation.

When a mysterious woman shows up in her hospital room and tells Rae she has a chance to be cured from cancer, Rae doesn’t believe her because the way to do it is to enter the world of the book series she and her sister love and find a certain flower.

Rae does really end up there as a villain and it’s clear from the start that she’s so ready to be evil!

I recently read an article about chronically ill and/or disabled people, like me, who were looking for books to read with good rep. It made me realize that what the author did here, providing a way to miraculously cure the main character’s disease, is an ableist way of not having to deal with an ill person. The article did state that not all chronically ill and/or disabled people mind this. As for me personally, it made me feel uneasy.

The reason why I rated this book so low is because the level of writing was very low too. I don’t find this easy to write but I honestly kept thinking “Is this written by a drunken teenager”? I just don’t get that this book is being published by a publisher I love. Or maybe this just wasn’t for me. I hope this finds its readers but I had to DNF because I just couldn’t keep reading this.

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. I think this could be an amazing read for so many people, for me the writing just didn’t work.

I love this book. I have a lot of feelings about this book. It is a glut of good things. It is the defiant, triumphant, heartbreaking desire to survive and to write your own story.

I highlighted DOZENS of quotations, all iconic.

“The internet is full of overthinking perverts. Wow, I miss the internet.”

Slyly self-aware, riddled with excessively millennial humour juxtaposed with Shakespearean drama, this is a meta pantomime, excessively enjoyable. It is the sheer exuberance of embracing, in the most ridiculous fashion, smiling villainy, juxtaposed with the stark and harsh reality of Rae’s life outside of fantasy.

Yes - of course it’s silly and unbelievable. That’s the point. The stories we tell ourselves give our lives meaning and help us to go on. But also, the roles we’re forced to play can constrict us. And Rae is taking control of the narrative.

The rollicking humour, high-jinks and absurdity is cut through by tragedy, drama, and the realisation that everyone has as rich an inner life as you. You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry with laughter.

You're going to have to bear with me on this one. Even a few days after finishing I'm not 100% sure I can put my thoughts into a coherent stream, but I'm gonna give it a go. Long Live Evil was... fun. It was laugh out loud hilarious in parts, but also kind of brutal and horrific in others. It's the story of a dying girl given a second chance at life, and the decisions she then makes to ensure that second chance arrives, and it asks the question 'when dumped into the body of the villain in one of your all time favourite series... what would you do to survive."

Rae is dying, so when she wakes up to find a stranger next to her bed, a stranger that seems to offer her the impossible, instead of being wary, Rae runs headfirst into the world of her favourite book series hoping to complete the magical bargain that will save her life. The only problem, she wakes in the body of the villain, a villain that she knows will be put to death... it's scheming time. Determined to save her own skin, Rae brings together a group of villains from the book, with no care for who lives or dies... they're only fictional characters anyway. But the more time she spends in the story, with the character's who inhabit it, the more Rae comes to realise that though these people might not be real to her, they are to each other, and Rae will have to decide whether her own life is worth more than the characters she has grown to love.

Rae herself was a brilliant MC, though not the only POV we get. She's someone who has felt abandonment, disappointment, and now on the verge of death, she takes the second chance when offered. She starts the story almost nonchalant, seeing these people as nothing more than characters in a book, not really caring if the come to any harm, lets just say that she takes the roll of villainess very seriously, scheming her days away trying to protect her own neck. She's feisty and reckless, but the more time she spends in the book, the more she realises that it's not just her own life that's at risk. Along side Rae we get the POV's of Emer; The Iron Maiden & Marius Valerius; The Last Hope, both of these characters aim to show just how much Rae is changing the plot and, while I enjoyed them as a whole, I do feel that they maybe had too many chapters that didn't really amount to anything within the story, and I did feel that their POV's sometimes made the story drag a little. Side character wise though, The Cobra had the most heartbreaking of stories and I absolutely adored him. And then there's Key, Rae's murderous guard who gave off peak villain vibes from his first scene and somehow managed to get worse as the book went on, whilst also managing to make you care for him!

For the most part, this book was ridiculously fun. Seeing Rae, a modern girl getting dumped into a kind of historical fantasy, where not only her manner of speaking, but of walking and behaviour were enough to cause scandal. She obviously has the upper hand, knowing how the story plays out and all, but she quickly comes to realise that the more she schemes trying to save her own neck, the more the story changes around her until it becomes almost recognizable from the one she knew. This doesn't phase Rae though, she takes the roll of villainess and makes it her bitch, using those around her for her own gain, never really acknowledging that they could possibly be real. Rae act's pretty much the same as any of us would, entering the world of our favourite book series. At first she's wary because of... you know... the death sentence, but once that's out of the way she simply revels in the fact she knows everything. Who will end up with who, everyone's dirty little secrets, their hearts deepest desires... I mean if that isn't the perfect base for villainy I don't know what is.

It's a story filled with twists, some predictable yes, but most, including the finale, absolutely took me by surprise. Brennan weaves these twists through her story bringing them in at pivotal moments and ensuring that, even if we didn't guess them, she leaves plenty of breadcrumbs for us to look back on thinking how stupid we were for not working it out. Her writing is as witty as her characters are, and her descriptions really bring the world of Emer and the characters that inhabit it to life. It's a story that's wondrously meta and self-aware, Rae constantly shines a light on the sexism of, not only traditional fantasy novels, but of the world itself. And this also allows Brennan to start subverting these stereotypes we're so used to reading. Thanks to the depth and amount of characters, it is 100% a character over plot driven story, which was fun because you never really knew what any character might do next, and Brennan really keeps us on our toes by making us question all the hero and villain style tropes.

It's a funny book, hilarious in parts, but it's also incredibly brutal in others, and when Brennan talks about sexism in the stories, it isn't just because Rae's Villain has an abnormally large bosom. Instead she used the levity from the story and her writing style to delve into some darker topics, consent, what exactly it means to be human etc. It's also incredibly brutal in parts, and there were some pretty descriptive and in depth fight and murder scenes.

So that was semi-coherent right? I did enjoy this one, around the 50% mark I wasn't sure that would be the case, and I do feel that the story was longer than it needed to be and certain POV's could have been cut down, but the ending made it all worth while. The ending that I absolutely didn't see coming, in more than one way, but the ending that has made me desperate to get my hands on the next book.

I was really excited by the concept of this book but after the first couple of chapters I wasn't sure it was for me and I did not like the main protagonist, Rae. However, it is definitely worth sticking with it as the story and the characters really start to take off as the book goes on.

The concept is definitely a really clever twist and I really enjoyed the way the author used the idea of ending up in your favourite story whilst still ensuring our main character had shocks to deal with. I also liked that the other characters were given POV chapters so we could get to know them beyond what Rae thinks based on the books she read. There were lots of surprises I didn't see coming which really keep you gripped.

Overall despite a shaky start I really appreciated the character growth throughout the book and by the end was completely hooked. I would definitely recommend giving this a read, especially if you love a good fantasy book.