A DNF for me. Really couldn't get on with the characters. The point where the two main characters gladhanded each other and basically said, "We're great!, aren't we!" was the point I left. I can see that the books meant to be fun, but I found it a drag, sadly. Having said that, a fellow reviewer I work with loved it and felt it was going to be one of his books of the year!

This is a really funny, interesting take - I love the twist on ending up being the villain. I struggled a little to get into it with Evie's voice and found it hard to get invested in the relationships, but I loved the world-building and the concept.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Orbit for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: cancer, death, murder, blood, violence, terminal illness, misogyny

Terminally ill with incurable cancer, Rae has tried to cope by turning to books. Her favourite series ‘Time of Iron’, and her sister’s biggest coping mechanism, is one of the only things she has left that feels normal. When Rae is offered a strange bargain to enter this world and find a flower that grants a wish, she jumps at the chance to be healthy again. However if she fails, her body will die and she'll remain trapped inside the story. Waking up, Rae finds herself in the body of the villainess of the series on the verge of her execution. Deciding that it’s better to be bad than good, Rae throws herself into this world of monsters, courtiers and magic, catching the eye of her favourite character- the alluring, evil Once and Future Emperor, though he isn't that man yet and is destined to love the hero. Rae soon assembles a group of villains to support her, hoping to change their doomed fates from how it happens on the page. However, as the body counts become increasingly higher and the Emperor’s anger increases, Rae and her team begin to realise that they probably won’t survive in this world either unless she starts to change things.

Darkly funny, moving and emotional and an incredibly satisfying retelling of fantasy fiction if the villain knew the story, “Long Live Evil” is unlike anything I’ve read before. I loved Rae as a character, she's so strong but also so badly vulnerable because of what she's been through. Every time she mentioned the hospital or how her life was changed I wanted to cry and hug her (she'd probably stab me). Her sense of humour and her gradual growing attachment to the characters was so well written. I loved Key, the insane and murderous royal guard she recruits and Cobra, a man everyone underestimates because he's always brightly coloured, the most but I also really enjoyed the character of Marius as well. This whole book felt like a love letter and a challenge to the fantasy genre, taking all the tropes and clichés and turning them into something new and original. While reading “Long Live Evil” I found myself wanting to read the books that Rae ends up inside. This was so good and so different, I can't wait to see what might come next in this series because its so unpredictable.

Long Live Evil was an interesting read, at times chaotic (maybe a little confusing) but also vastly entertaining and funny. It is / has:
🗡️ Portal fantasy, with an element of body swap
🗡️ Morally ambiguous characters, a celebration of villains

Initially I found the book a challenge to get into but when I did I enjoyed it. It was action packed and over the top at times (in a way I could best describe as panto-esque) which I didn’t mind.
In the story we follow Rae, who via a Faustian style bargain, is transported into the world of her sister’s favourite fantasy series. Only the character she ends up as is about to die and is regarded as more villain than heroine. This means she has a predicament she needs to get out of fast and a brilliant cast of morally grey characters around her.
It was these characters that made the story. I have favourites (yes I mean Key). But I also liked reading Emer and Marius.
As this takes place within a fictional fantasy story, the author can play with (invert and change) cliche, trope and narrative / character expectations, which they do. But Rees Brennan goes further and reflects within the narrative on doing this. I found this enjoyable and fun, but by the end of the story I was a little tired of reference to plot and character arcs.
However, I’ll be continuing the series when future books are released.

Such a fun book, I was nervous going in because I thought this might lean towards being a little young feeling. I was pleasantly suprised by everything about this, a tonne of fun! Really loved the characters and this took turns that I wasn't expecting which helped the story feel fresh and excting.
I'm really looking forward to reading more from this author!

I was influenced by Leigh Bardugo into picking this up. I wish I hadn't bothered and listened to my gut feeling as it didn't sound like something I would enjoy and it proved me right. Complete waste of time.

If someone said you could live in the world of your favourite fantasy series, would you do it? Rae decides it’s her only option as she is dying of cancer. Grabbing at a second chance at living, Rae is transported into the world of her favourite series and her all time favourite character, the Once and Forever Emperor. She wakes in a castle teetering on the edge of a terrifying chasm and she soon realises she has been cast in the role of the villainess in the Emperor’s Tale. Assembling an equally villainous group of rogues and murderers to help her change the fate of those in the story, Rae and her allies may not make it to the final pages.

This is Brennan‘s debut adult epic fantasy and it stands out for its originality, the wicked one liners from Rae and her allies and the deliciously dark humour and plot. This is a story of a protagonist struggling to come to terms with her impending death and leaving her loved ones behind. What makes this theme even more poignant is that Brennan had experienced cancer herself and you can feel all of that denial, pain, and anger poured into Rae, making you feel even more sympathy for Rae’s predicament. The motley crew accompanying Rae includes an axe-wielding maiden, a shining knight with dark mood swings, a playboy spy master and a homicidal yet charming bodyguard. You will become so invested in each of these characters arcs alongside that you will struggle to see why they are pitched as the bad guys in the story. Brennan shines a spotlight on how in a world where evil is the common denominator, sometimes it’s up to the morally gray characters to save the day.

The world building is excellent, the character development is on point, and be prepared for brutal fights alongside moments of hilarity courtesy of Rae and her companions.

Brennan expertly plays with many of the favourite fantasy tropes particularly readers love of the bad boys. The ending was pretty obvious but still satisfying. If you are looking for a fun fantasy story go check out Long Live Evil which is out now. Oh and you can keep the Once and Forever Emperor – Key is the true star of the villains here!

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for the arc.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A fun and easy read. I enjoyed how the plot evolved and how modern element intertwined with those characteristic of fairy tales!

The book throws the reader into the story quite quickly and I found it difficult to find my way around the world at first.
It took me a while to warm to the protagonists because they remained somewhat two-dimensional at the beginning and the pacing of the story was very fast.
A trigger warning right at the beginning: every reader must be aware that the beginning of the book deals with death and that the protagonist is ill with no hope of recovery.
The serious topic at the beginning of the book caught me off guard and made me very thoughtful.

The protagonist is transported from the “real” world into a book world where she takes on the role of a villainess who is to be executed right at the beginning. She then struggles with the prospect of avoiding this execution so that she can either live a healthy life in this world or return to her world and live a healthy life there.

I had high expectations of the book and was unfortunately somewhat disappointed. I was looking forward to a story with an antagonist who is evil and puts her evil plans into action. Instead, I got a protagonist who constantly mentions how evil she is, but doesn't put any of it into practice. So the whole time I was waiting for a twist in the story, which unfortunately never happened.

I did like the intrigue at court and the fact that the protagonist could never be sure and always had to be on her guard to avoid being outwitted or killed. But even that got lost in endless dialogs and too little action.
The plot is confusing and almost nothing actually happens during the whole book! There is no depth to the story, or the characters.

The only interesting thing could have been the moral dilemma faced by the protagonist, who is transported from a modern world similar to ours, to a historic one, where she has to carry out evil deeds. Unfortunately, it was only mentioned in passing and dismissed with humor.

What I also didn't like was the writing style, which was too modern and didn't fit in with the historical world at all.

Everyone loves a bad boy right? Especially hot fictional ones. When Rae, a terminal cancer patient, wakes up in her favourite fantasy series she grabs her second chance with both hands. But she’s not the heroine, she’s the character everyone loves to hate and her good girl sister is set to marry the hot Once and Forever Emperor. Rae gathers a rag tag group of villains to keep the plot running but will Rae and her allies survive her second chance. This is quite a difficult book to reviews as it’s deeply personal to the author and her experience. First off I hate cancer story lines and I probably wouldn’t have read this if I’d known going in that it was a major plot point. However all the fantasy world stuff is excellent and funny and tropey and all the good things. The ending was obvious but absolutely satisfying is in the best possible way. It was the best of times but also the worse of times and a quality read from Rees Brennan as usual.

Campy, funny, all around good time.

You know what, I have to admit this was a very weird read, but boy was I hooked. The fantasy world was fun. I love a main female character that truly doesn’t care what anyone think and goes down her own path and Rae definitely did exactly that. She knew exactly who she was and didn’t budge and I loved that. The self-awareness that the storytelling had is definitely was made the book so great. It wasn’t taking itself too seriously. We could go down these cooky, fun, windy paths and enjoy ourselves along the way. Was it a bit predictable? Yes, but the characters and the writing and the whole atmosphere of it all made me not care in the slightest. It was laugh out loud funny and a good time all around.

Also, I absolutely LOVE it when side characters have more dimension than just moving the plot along and l loved that they were whole and complete characters.

Now, I will say that the pacing was a bit of a slog to get through at first, but when I was in it, I was in it. Brennan made you really like Rae and care about her journey. You were rooting for her and wanted to stay and watch her succeed.

Sadly this was a DNF for me. The writing felt very choppy and there was far too many POV’s to care about any of the characters. Key was the only interesting one!

Yes yes yes.... Give me more! Key's number one fan! And the Cobra close second obviously!

What would you do if you were about to die and someone opened up a door to your favorite Book's world and told you "You have 1 month, if you get hold of the magical flower you'll wake up cured." Obviously call for the nurse to grab this insane person...

Rae has to fight for her life, and makes friends with some people who think her mad. For her the characters aren't real, cause its just a book...right?

I love that the people in the book dont understand the modern way she talks, many moments were hilarious.
The cast is amazing and I love how we see people get close to eachother, in different ways than the story Rae knows, how Rae changes the story sometimes without wanting to.

I dont want to spoil but... Go read it!
GIVE ME THE NEXT BOOK!!!!!!!
*Thanks to NetGalley and Brown Book Group UK for access to the ebook against an honest review.*

Thankyou NetGalley for sending me this copy of this book! I was so excited to read this one, I was really enjoying it to begin with, then I put the book down and come back to it a few days later. I struggled so badly to get back into this, I was so close to having this as my first dnf, but I believe every book deserves to be finished. It just got a little confusing where the book was going from when I was reading it.

I appreciate that the author used her own experience with cancer as some of the motivation for the main character, Rae. Which of course, made this the most real and chilling aspect of the book - particularly the idea of cancer treatment as being so awful that it must be punishment and that you must be truly villainous to deserve it.

That's where any interesting concept of villainy ended for me, however. The writing was so disjointed that it lost any clear sense of plot. The majority of the characters were ham pantomime villains and Rae was an idiot throughout, completely trashing any concept of story, memory loss aside.

The over-use of insouciant and references to Rae's "evil twins" (her breasts, for God's sake, call them her breasts. And that's before we get into Rahela's sultry body and voice and "villainous curves" yuck) were also tiresome. As was all the Gen Z language.

The world and the original story would have actually been really interesting, had they made any sense. And and the extracts from Time of Iron read worse than the plot presented.

I nearly gave up around the 20% mark and it was only when new POV chapters that didn't involve Rae at all started appearing that I had any motivation to continue. I was much more interested in Marius, the Cobra, Emer. Literally anyone but Rae.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Long Live Evil is a fun, campy, meta look at what would happen if you fell into your favourite story. Our Main Character is terminally ill in the "real" world and gets given a second chance at life, if she can find a flower within the realm of her favourite book. This is not extremely well executed or paced to be frank but it is very fun and goofy, It doesn't take itself or common romance fantasy tropes seriously. I think with the right expectations this book will be loved by the right audience.

To start with the positives, the first chapter was captivating. So many notable quotes and concepts to truly think about and I was highlighting and super excited for how this book would progress.

Unfortunately my enthusiasm did not last long, the pacing was off. I was bored and found things to be moving slowly. I also found there was a bit too much “real world” lingo. At first this was an interesting juxtaposition with the high fantasy old worldie times but it became tired quickly.

Truly a shame as the concept was phenomenal.. just the execution was not there for me.

Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

I was very much anticipating the release of this book. The whole premise of someone becoming one of the characters in their favourite book series was so fun and interesting to me as someone who has thought many times how much I’d love to be absorbed into my favourite worlds.

I, overall, did enjoy the book. I loved the world building, had a great time reading it - it was a huge amount of fun in an incredibly unhinged way and there were some characters that I really enjoyed.

It didn’t fully live up to my expectations though. The pacing felt a bit off at points and I personally found it quite slow in places. I also, at times, struggled to root for the main protagonist but I did like the development of the character and would love to see if I warm to her a bit more. The cobra, however, was a star! More of him please.

What I really loved, though, was the ending. It was exciting and it surprised me. I thought I knew what was coming and I have to applaud Sarah Rees Brennan for actually coming up with what I thought was a good spin on it. It was that exact moment for me that committed me to reading more of the series and I will definitely be picking up book 2!

Long Live Evil is a fun escapist fantasy book that I really enjoyed. It took me a little while to get into and I wasn't sure if it was the book for me but I'm glad I stuck with it as i found it really enjoyable and overall a fun read. There is a lot of world building and introduction to various characters that I found difficult to keep up with initially but once I got my head around it and settled into the story I couldn't put it down. I love the premise for this book and enjoyed seeing a story told from a 'villain' perspective although if our characters are truly villainous is another thing. I found the characters entertaining and I cant wait to read more if this continues as a series.

I’ll be honest, when I started this book I was a little dubious, I loved the premise, stepping into a loved book series (in this case, a fantasy series called Time of Iron) and becoming one of the characters, a villain in fact, all to save your life in the real world. However plot aside, and with the importance of the main character’s fatal illness at the start of this story, the book starts incredibly light hearted to the point, for me, it’s a little jarring. Yes it’s fun, silly, dastardly and all that but the use of “villain”, “evil” and “minion” like a comma, or the size of Lady Rahela’s breasts was getting a little repetitive. I was concerned that this book was fun but without particular depth. And I’m glad to say I was wrong.

Stick this book out and it’s absolutely worth it, the characters become more than tropes and 1 dimensional characters grow and develop as their lives deviate from the plot of the tale. Rae starts this challenge, surviving the story to obtain a healing flower, treating it almost as a game after spending so long in hospital, the people around her are characters, of no real consequence to her scheming, the plot is vaguely predictable as her sister has read this story by her hospital bed. However as the book continues, Rae comes to realise these characters are real, they feel and love and want and as this realisation comes to Rae and her feelings grow for these people, the shallowness of the book I previously judged feels more like a deliberate mirroring of Rae’s growth and the supporting characters taking a more solid, deeper form.

This is a fun book, deliciously devious and silly at times but there are also themes of redemption, the morality and complexity of good and evil, and love. There are some really enjoyable, wild characters on the page and many that you get to witness blossom, and I have to say that I ended the book desperately needing more.

This is a ride, a little bumpy at times but it takes you somewhere exciting if you just hold on tight - and you absolutely won’t regret it.

Thank you NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.