Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️
“‘I am many Adelaises, and I like being many Adelaises. And it’s not that any one version of me feels wrong or anything, it’s only that there are so many of being me that feel right. But I can’t choose every day who I am depending on what feels right. I have to be what other people expect.’ Adelais thought a minute. ‘I suppose that’s why I choose to be the Wolf as often as I can. When you’re a story, then people expect you to be different, at least. And maybe that’s as close as I can get.’”
The last story of Villian I’d Like to F…”The Conquering of Tate the Pious” by Sierra Simone offers this quote. After reading Joanna Shupe’s, Eva Leigh’s, Nicola Davidson’s, and Adriana Herrera’s, along with Sierra Simone’s, offerings to this anthology of delicious villainous romances, this quote reminds you of the true nature of people. It made me think on Lady “Viper” and Mr. Molineaux, Blake Evans, Billy Baxter, the bootleggers Camden and Vincenzo, and the Wolf. How each of these “villians” was painted as such by a society based solely on their deeds. Yet, what made them a villain? Are the social norms the issue? Through many of these stories, that’s the means for villainy. Even more, each of the characters crafted by the ingenious authors of this anthology comes with baggage, some trauma that has shaped their worldview. This, dear readers, is where they steal your heart. Do they engage in shady business practices? Yes. Do they terrorize others? Indeed. However, as this anthology shows, those are identities crafted by pain and forged by an unforgiving society.
As with the former anthologies by these authors, the eroticism of this book entices you to keep reading. I know romance readers love spice, and it’s turned to high in this book. But what I love more is the promise of this book: that even the big baddie can be loved. That it takes an incredible person to see past the facade that frightens the average person because there is more to a person. There are different identities in all of us. Finding the space to live our truest self, all of them together, is where love can be found. Oh, how I love Shupe and Leigh and Davidson and Herrera and Simone. If they write it, I will come…
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 