I was expecting so much more....

This book follows a town called Ilvernath, where a group of families send their chosen champion in a fight to the death, in order to wield high magick for their own houses. I was excited to pick this up since it sounded like a darker Hunger Games setting, but sadly, I was left disappointed.

There are multiple POVs and honestly there was no clear distinction between them- they all sounded the same! In terms of characters, I enjoyed reading about Gavin and Allistair, but that's all. The action doesn't start until the HALFWAY mark! Before that, it's just backstories, and it got boring quickly. It was a struggle trying to finish this one, despite the gorgeous cover, and I didn't understand why half of this book had to be so slow, while the last 40 percent felt rushed through!

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for an e-arc!

Having previously read, and really enjoyed, The Devouring Grey duology by Christine Herman I was really excited to see she had written All Of Us Villains along with Amanda Foody. Described as being like a more villainous version of The Hunger Games, but with magic, I was drawn in before I’d even opened the first page. The only problem I have with this book is now I have to wait for its sequel!

All Of Us Villains focused on the small city of Ilvernath, where 7 families compete to have control over the powerful high magick. Every generation 7 champions, one from each family, are chosen to compete to the death for control. Until now the trial had been completed in secret but with the publication of a salacious tell all book, suddenly Ilvernath is under the spotlight. Which of the champions will win, who will be the one to write their own story, one that has to be written in blood.

The world building and magick in this book is brilliant. You really get a sense of Ilvernath as a place and how unique it is. Without giving anything away I especially liked the descriptions and use of the landmarks during the tournament. The use of magick, and the distinction between high and common magick and spells and curses is simply brilliant. I loved the way these were used throughout the book, and used in place of traditional weapons during the tournament. The names of these spells and curses, and their properties were so original.

The characters were all well drawn and had great depth and detail to them. I liked that there was more to each of them that met the eye. You are really left to consider who the real villains of this story are.

The chapters are short and are written from the perspective of four of the seven champions, alternating each time. I’ll admit it took me a little while to get into the rhythm of the chapters being like this but it worked so well and created great suspense throughout.

Overall this is a fantastic YA book, I really enjoyed reading it, and it was very hard to put down! I’m just gutted I need to wait for the sequel now! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

With thanks to Netgally & Gollancz for the advanced copy in return for my honest review.

I know, I simply know, that if Squid Game had became a phenomenon before the marketing campaign for this title had began, it would be that TV series on the blurb and not Hunger Games.
Still, I haven’t watch that tv series, but I read this book and liked it.
At first, I wasn’t very sure of what the development of the premise of the plot would be, but then it was very original and unique.
If you are looking for a story with characters that are not morally ‘grey’ but completely ‘pitch black’, this is the novel for you! The best part is that they are not all ‘villains’ just because they have to, but each of them has an intricate and well-developed psychology. This also leads to have a cast of very different characters: as it happens with all the multi-pov books, there was that one pov I was more looking forward to, but the great (and surprising) thing was that all the povs were able to hold my interest! Maybe, the only think I liked a bit less about the povs was that I would have liked even more povs, from all the champions.
However, this was a very unique and interesting book and I’m looking forward to read the sequel!

Magic, villains, heroes and secrets - the perfect formula for a new series by Christine Herman and Amanda Foody.
'All of Us Villians' is set is the fictional town of Ilvernath, in a world where magic is commonplace but there are still some nasty secrets to be revealed.
A member of the magical community has recently published a book called “A Tradition of Tragedy”; a revelatory and salacious book that shocks the community to the core as they learn of the truth behind the magical powers in Ilvernath. Or rather the curse behind their powers.......
There are seven families who have been fighting to control the high magick for centuries, resulting in a magick tournament that occurs ever generation. Now, with the rising of the Blood Moon, the families realise that they must choose their champion for the tournament - only and this is not a Tri-Wizard event but rather a duel to the death with only one winner. When the Blood Veil falls, the tournament will begin and the eventually winner (murdered?) will receive control of high magick until the next event.
Not one of the families is particularly likable and seem to have no redeeming aspects. Overall, they certainly fit the character of 'villains' from the title. Faced with media scrutiny and the realisation that they can no longer hide as before, our seven champions enter the arena. Alliances will be made and fractured, friendships destroyed and hearts broken as our seven battle their way along.
The story is told from the perspective of four champions:
Alistair Lowe
Briony Thorburn
Gavin Grieves
Isobel Macaslan
providing the reader with an insight into their history and also their reasons for participating. The history aspect functions particularly well and we learn of how all the champions grew up as friends in the town and now are struggling their emotions as they fight. I also found myself sympathizing as I hear of the story from their viewpoint - a great method of encouraging the reader to become emotionally invested in the novel.
This novel has been described as 'the Hunger games with magic' and that certainly is an accurate description.
A promising start to a new fantasy YA series and I look forward to learning of what happens next.

This book widely exceeding my expectations in the best way! It was such a fun and difficult read than I normally enjoy- but I highly recommend trying this!

All of Us Villains is an exciting dark fantasy that’s easy to fly through, but the crawling first half and lack of compelling characters left a lot to be desired.

Every generation seven families choose a champion to fight to the death. The winners get sole control of a rare and powerful resource: The city’s high magick supply. When an anonymous source divulges this tradition in a book named ‘A Tradition of Tragedy’, the world turns to the town in macabre interest. This story follows four narrative characters. Alistair has trained his whole life to be champion – his family are likely winners known for their cruelty and devotion to power. Isobel is the paparazzi’s favourite, and although she comes from a family with a bad reputation, she’s a powerful spellmaker. Gavin, the underdog, from a family who has never won. Lastly, there’s Briony, whose lifelong desire to become a champion might come back to bite her.

All of Us Villains is a page-turner filled with dramatic moments and a gritty atmosphere. The examination of family expectations and how they impact character development and desires was particularly strong. Unfortunately, the perspective characters were bland and, other than a few exciting moments, I found it difficult to care about their fates. This book also didn’t have many of the heartbreaking scenes you’d expect from a book that features a death tournament. It was more preparing, hiding, and alliances than bloodthirstiness, which seems opposed to how the book was marketed. The tournament doesn’t begin until around the 40% mark, and although the character and worldbuilding development benefit from this elongated opening, it slowed the pacing down considerably. This combined with a sudden ending that felt unfinished impacted the flow of the story. All of Us Villains is worth a go for people who like multiple perspectives, dark fantasy, and dramatic twists, but it didn’t live up to its premise for me.

I'm a huge fan of both authors so had high hopes for this collaboration which I'm pleased to say were exceeded. Comparisons to THE HUNGER GAMES are inevitable but this has the addition of dark magic and morally grey characters. I'm excited to read the next book after the way this one ended!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This book was an absolute romp from start to finish. While bearing an obvious resemblance to The Hunger Games, the added magic adds an element of unpredictability to the plot and makes it all the more enjoyable. The characters are engaging and the plot drives you along at speed. I'm fully invested in whatever comes next.

This was an absolutely brilliant, I loved every second of this book. The writing is excellent and the world building was good.The characters are what really drew me in however, I just felt so connected to them, I did think it was a title slow to start, with the magic being explained but it picked up pace and then it was just fantastic. Overall it’s definitely a 5 star read to me

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Thank you Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I absolutely loved the magic system and the characters. The magic system was really interesting and easy to understand. I loved the Hunger Games vibe it had, I guess I just love watching teenagers fight to death in a tournament so please don't blame me.
When I saw it had multiple POVs I got a little scared that it would get a little too repetitive although it was repetitive I really enjoyed reading all the different point of views. My favorite character/POV was definitely Alistar, I LOVE moral grey characters I just can't get enough of them.
I loved how this book ended, that cliffhanger was just perfect. Hopefully I'll continue to enjoy reading this series.

Decades ago, seven families in Ilvernath cursed each other. From that point on, one member of each family must fight to the death in each generation. No one knew about the curse until someone spilled the beans in a salacious tell all book called “A Tradition of Tragedy”. All Of Us Villains begins as a new generation are about to begin the tournament …but could this generation end this grisly tradition once and for all?

I had heard claims this was like a Harry Potter and Hunger Games mash up and I couldn’t wait to read about it. Having just finished it, I am in two minds. There were lots of elements of the book that I enjoyed. I really appreciated the little excerpts from “A Tradition of Tragedy” which both informed me about the cursed world whilst also setting the theme for the chapter ahead. I loved the details of the spells especially their names. There were plenty twists and tense moments in the arena where I held my breath as I read.

What detracted from my enjoyment of the book was the pace and the sheer level of detail in the book which was often confusing.. I enjoyed the scene setting and exploring this world initially but then I felt the pace seemed to slow right down with endless world building and I was tempted to DNF. About this point, there was an intriguing ember of romance and that alone carried my interest for the middle part of the book until that pace slowed too and I was left a bit alienated from the plot and the characters. I enjoyed the ending and the got the answers to some of my questions. It’s clearly the first book in a series and I am left in two minds about whether I will read the next book. If I was guaranteed a speedier pace, I would definitely pick it up.

Thank you to the authors, Orion and Netgalley for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was AMAZING! I loved every single one of the morally grey characters. I need the next book now! This was by far one of my favourite books of this year

So, I went into All of Us Villains pretty much blind (only knew it involved a tournament to death and villains) and I’m so glad I did.

I absolutely loved this book. The characters are definitely what made me fall for it, but the story is also so enticing and intriguing! I did find the beginning hard to follow with the magic being explaining in little bits here and there, but by the end, just wow..

Like I mentioned, the characters are definitely my favourite part of All of Us Villains because you can’t help but fall in love with them while also having them break your heart. They’re morally grey characters in the best possibly way and I’m so so excited for the sequel.

In the little place called Ilvernath the Death tournament is about to begin. Seven families chose the champion each Blood Moon and they have to compete till the death and only one winner gets the prize. Unlimited source of magick for their family.

Each family has it’s favourite. Champions are raised from their childhood to become participants of this tournament.

Each of them has their own reasons to participate and win (well, because the only other option is death). All of them have different abilities and skills, some will cheat, some will try to form the alliances, but some will completely change the way of the tournament.

There are supposed to be seven participants, but we get chapters and POV’s only from four of them.

I felt that authors were involved too much in character development, sadly I didn’t feel anything towards any of them, some even annoyed me. Briony had so much resemblance to Hyperia from #HouseOfDragons written by Jessica Cluess. And evilness of Alister, there was simply something missing, I was lacking emotions.

I did actually see a lot of resemblance to “House of Dragons”, which also didn’t impress me ( #sorrynotsorry ).

Magick system is rather interesting, there are different classes of magic present and not everyone can wield high leveled magick (interesting that authors decided to spell this word in a specific way).

Basically, I’ve been expecting something dark and grim, but the only “scary” thing that I got were few deaths, one amputated limb, curses (actually, curses were cool!) and night time story monsters.

This book could be best described briefly as "Hunger Games but with magic".

Imagine a high risk, cut throat competition filled with dark magic and curses and morally grey characters. All of Us Villians gives us a full ride into this mayhem.

The story revolves around 7 families fighting to gain control of the magic in a town called Ilvernath. Every 20 years, each family selects a champion who will represent them in a 'fight till death' magical competition.

The plot is very detailed and the magic system is pretty rigid and complicated. It's pretty fast paced with some really good twists and I enjoyed that. But I had a few issues with this.

The initial chapters felt kind of like a info dump. We get to know everything about each champion. Lots of characters are introduced in a quick succession. We are given their backstories and the family level politics involved in selecting them. This left me a bit overwhelmed.

One of the biggest let down for me was that the characters did not feel well defined to me. Maybe it was because we are following multiple povs here not just one or two MCs.
Before I could connect with one character, the plot would move ahead to another character. Because of this I did not did not particularly care about whats gonna happen to any of them.

Another thing that bothered me was that the major part of the plot felt very similar to The Hunger Games. The exceptions were the things related to magic, but otherwise there was nothing unique about the whole concept of the competition.

I, sadly could not enjoy this to the fullest because of the points I mentioned above.

But if you enjoyed The Hunger Games, you can definitely check out this book.

3 stars

That ending, I can't. I love it when there is the huge potential that a main character turns into the villain for the sequel. And no spoilers but I already had an inkling that this character could either turn into an antihero or a villain but seems he's on his way to the villain role which I really hope comes true.

The romance was a bit kitsch though imo. I'd have thought people trained their entire lives to go through the magical version of Hunger Games would have been a little more emotionally unavailable and everything. Oh well, that may happen in book 2 because of a certain betrayal and we all know betrayal from a character to the other in a romantic relationship (no, not cheating) is the trigger to draammmaaa.

I was looking forward to this book, the promise of some proper villainy hooked me. The story of 7 families offering up a champion to decide who controls the magic was interesting, and the magic system was clever. I felt it was a little light on the villain element though. The ending was brilliant though. A great cliffhanger

The world-building in this 'once in a generation' fight to the death is fantastic. The spell crafting and casting, the different skills of the seven champions and their wildly differing families were all well explored and fascinating. My disappointment was with the way the characters' personalities chopped and changed, it was impossibly to get a grip on what they were really like and therefore I couldn't get invested in them. Gavin was probably the exception to this, he was straightforward and knew what he wanted.

The pacing was very good in the first half with absorbing back stories of the four main characters but once the tournament started it seemed to go haywire. Events followed one another at breakneck speed with the champions veering madly from one point of view to the next with seemingly no good reason, particularly Isobel. The ending is rushed and unclear, not so much a cliff-hanger as a complete plot change.

Quite a lot of the book is 5-star but overall, to me, it lacked cohesion.

I adored this book and hate that it has a sequel because I wanted to know how it was all going to end!

The story takes place in Ilvernath, where every 20 years the sky turns blood red and seven ancient families are cursed to send someone from their younger generations to fight against the others. The winner's family controls high magic for the next 20 years; losing gains nothing for your family - and you end up dead.

There are four different POVs, all easily distinguishable and with different story arcs to help keep them all separate. I hate it when I vastly prefer one POV over the others, and I'm happy to report that I enjoyed all of the varying POVs and was always excited to find out what would happen to the characters next.

I understand why the title is 'All of Us Villains', but I didn't actually find the characters to be villains - they were victims of the curse and of their families. I think I'd gone into it expecting actual villains, and while there are signs of that developing in some of the characters near the end, I can definitely think of YA fantasy out there with much more villainous protagonists. This didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book, just something to note in case you're expecting true villainy.

I really enjoyed reading this and am so excited for the next book!

When I received a review request for ‘All of Us Villians’, I got so excited. I don’t read a lot of YA Fantasy, but this book sounded really exciting. And something about that cover just made me want to grab it and start reading.

In ‘All of Us Villians’ we visit the remote city of Ilvernath where every generation 7 families name a champion to compete in a tournament to the death. In this book we read the perspectives of four of those champions. The family of the champion that wins becomes the guardian for high magick for the next two decades. At first this tournament was a secret, but now a book has been written about it and lots of people want to check it out.

For one that has trouble with names and keeping apart a lot of different names, the beginning of this book was a bit of a challenge. Especially the first half of this book. There are just so many characters to get to know and I definitely had trouble getting used to all these characters in the beginning. But not in a bad way. I really enjoyed getting to know these characters. They are all very different, and they are all champions for different reasons.

This book definitely has a Hunger Games vibe to it. How can it not be when young adults are fighting to the death to win a tournament. But the Hunger Games was a book I absolutely loved and although this was a read I enjoyed, I didn’t love it as much. But that is mostly because I’m just not into fantasy and YA as much as I used too. The writing definitely keeps you hooked, and there is enough going on to keep you interested till the end.

And that ending! Boy.. what a cliffhanger. These authors are trying to kill me for sure. LOL!.

This book sure was very different than my normal reads but if you’re into YA Fantasy, I’d definitely recommend it.