[NOVEL] Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.

Assistant to the Villain series. Book 1

Note to myself after starting reading: Remind myself again to never trust review of others.

I really should listen to no one and do my own thing, this is my reaction.

Because I had fun.

I'm not unaware of its' flaws, but it's simply fun. Let me share my opinion on it.

First of all, you should read it more like fantasy+comedy combo, if you are aware of some older fantasy comedy movies then you will know with what I associated it with. I don't compare it to any existing titles like the Goodreads summary mentioned that it's like having 'Once upon a time' plus 'The Office', while I haven't watched or read any of the two, I just barely know what they're about. Thus I have my own impression of it.

It's duo POV, but each POV is described from the third person perspective like a narrator, instead of first person (which I appreaciate).

The book is a fun fantasy story with a lot of humor, some unexpected characters, easy plot (the main point of the story is in the summary), twist that suited me just fine and just a book for having a good time.

I loved the humor, I honestly laughed a lot I think, sometimes at the stupidest things maybe. Even if it seemed like everyone from the characters is on the same page when it comes to the sense of humor, but actually who cares, the pokes at each other are fun, the sudden turns are fun when it comes to Evie's point of attention.

The book has a tone of being ridiculous and two main characters fit that role, after all it's a comedy and they're a bit like two silly geese, unaware of each other. But they're not insufferable, trust me, I've read enough of those to say what is a dumb damsel and what is an FMC with issues and Evie Sage is just that, you catch that she's not simple from the get-go. The Villain fits the role of an unserious male protag from old fantasy comedies, maybe he's a handsome guy, but not without a fun edge.

/SPOILERS/

Evangeline Sage. Evie is a specific type of person. As I said she is pretty unafraid of things that happened to her, the initial chase with the Villain and her recruitment as his Assistant. It's not like she's devoid of fear, but she is not afraid wen it comes to him and his deeds. Maybe it's something intuitive, who knows.

Evie is smitten with her boss, she can't help but notice his handsome face and figure, but eventually the Villain did the things that others didn't, something that other might find awful, but she was grateful for even.

To some there was a lot of it in the text, but honestly I saw nothing bad with thinking your target is handsome. I mean I think I was too influenced by reading too many Chinese novels, where so much of the text is simply describing how someone is handsome or beautiful, so I saw nothing bad that Evie eyed her boss. If it was a cinema language which had no context but simply showed an attractive man, I'm pretty sure many female viewers would just gasp at it, then how are you better than Evie then? I just see no logic. It's only that she is afraid of voicing her feelings, but actually her motivation is that the Villain acts sometimes that she can't interpret, as if his feelings are polar opposite.

She is not an empty head, she does not idolizes him, she pokes her fun from time to time, her way of thinking is actually quite normal, it's just she voices her thoughts outloud. From personal experience I know that even at the moment when you should be sad you might get some unwelcomed and seemingly untimely thoughts. But no one indicated they can't visit your head. Because the book is not serious, her fits are quite appropriate to me. I even find them funny.

She has her own past, the moment I saw her actions I did not think she's dense or dumb, I saw my fair share of low IQ characters to say that she is not. She might be a klutz like a good cliche (reminds me of Evelyn from The Mummy (1999)). For her this employment actually became the best thing, since she's not really on good terms with others due to her own story, which is as following:

This world has magic, it's not fully explained, but some people are consumed by it if they are not guided appropriately, Evie's mother got her magic when she gave birth to her third child, daughter Lyssa. But then things went wrong. The out of control magic killed her firstborn child, son Gideon. And then she is said to disappear. What I took from it in the text is that she was gone, but not dead (my predition came true). From that point her father who was a retired Valiant Guard of the king settled down with two daughters, but eventually he fell ill with the Mystic Illness that plagues the kingdom, it's something that has no cure. Evie took it upon herself to take care of this family. Since long she dropped out of school to take care of the youngest girl and then she worked, so the burden was on her shoulders. It was a bit devastating to see that her ideallistic image was not what it was in real life.

The Villain, or Trystan. The Villain is described very cooly, but it is more cartoonish way I think? He is dark and handsome, always wears black and sometimes says funny things with a serious face. 

Deeply inside he likes Evie a lot and is afraid of it, he is afraid of what it may do to him and to her. He is ready to find his end underground, so he doesn't want to drag her down with him too.

For him Evie became the light.

Although he has enough of those similar reactions to Evie, but they have their own explanation too. Maybe some will find that he expresses his inner love left and right too many times and will not like it. Again, I see no trouble with that. Maybe you will find some situations to be inappropriate who knows.

In general his fascination with Evie lies in his past we find in the very last part. Due to his family and his father beaing always away as a healer and his mother not being the most loving mom in the world, Trystan lacked love. When his father made attempt to get closer he was already quite old. Then he was taken to the King to serve and King made him feel like he mattered, what he lacked all these years was said to the then naive Trystan, before he was betrayed. Now he became what others thought of him - The Villain. In that regard he existed for ten years before he met Evie, unlike others she did not react with fear, more like excitement and interest. And she made him feel like he mattered again. This time for real.

They both had the same side where they felt unwanted, unloved and that they don't matter, this united them. And this is why she became so important in his heart.

The Plot. Mainly revolves around the mystery of who has betrayed the Villain and infiltrated the Mansion. Some may find that there is not fantasy elements or they expected more action or some funny situations. But to me there was enough of those. The magic and fantasy were not the central piece but had enough space, the same goes for funny situations. The book is very easy in this regard.

I'm leaving the main spoiler of 'who did it' out, to at least leave some mystery behind. It's actually a nice twist to me, it's not like it can be traced, but it's not completely unexpected. It's a great turn for our FMC to grow and change.

I was actually waiting for some unexpected certain wow effect and I got it.

/-/

First of all, my advice to anyone, go into the story not reading any reviews or even a summary, go blind and with floor expectation. The lower your settings are, the better you can analyze things happening without any of that 'Oh, I thought it will have this or that'.

I say this because I heard people say that they were expecting more of actions, though the book has it. Like they expect more of evilness, though again the book has it. 

Certain lack of depth? But it's an easy-going book in general. And we do explore more into character eventually. They are not the pair of "IT girl" and she is so special that everyone goes after her like a heartthrob, she has her specialness though, and the hunk, who is invincible and devastatingly cool at all times. I think they're quite the opposite.

The plot itself may lack some complexity, but again what do you expect from a humorous story..

This just says how much different the interpretation can be and if you see someone not speaking in favor of something or on the contrary telling you something is a good book, you should take it with a laddle of salt. Simply because a person on YT is still a person, just the same reader as yourself and the number of subscribers does not make anyone's point of view more valid.

This what happened with 'Assistant to the Villain', I honestly was intrigued by it the moment I saw it, the title sounded fun and the overall premise sounded fun. But I had to put it off again and again, to the point where a second book managed to come out and I couldn't make myself pick it up, just because I saw few people being more or less just unimpressed to say the least. I was pretty afraid to be disappointed. 

Now I know that I'm not disappointed :) I had my fun. At least with the first book :D

Evil never dies.

RATE: 4,5 /5.