Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Long live dislikable female main characters with this flip on traditional fantasy tropes.

I love the idea of flipping the script on fantasy tropes, where our main characters are fundamentally good or working towards good. Our main character Ray, is pretty dislikable the entire time. She is selfish, and self-absorbed. She leans into being a villain so hard that she calls her guard Key "minion" regularly.

The writing is witty, and there were a few laugh out loud moments for me, although that's not the whole vibe of the book. There are a lot of characters, and I got a little confused between them as they all have names, titles and then nicknames.

My favourite character Key, really shone through. I picked this book up specifically because of him, and he did not disappoint. When he was in a scene I was fully invested.

This book is long, and I wish it was a little shorter, or the pacing a little faster. That said, we're setting up a word for a series, so I understand needing to lay the foundation. The book really picks up for me after the 50% mark.

Let's take a moment to recognize the amazing narration by Moira Quirk. I started listening to her with Dark Water Daughter (the Winter Sea trilogy) by H.M Long and Moira has this way of making you feel like you're right there along side her. She also does amazing voice acting to differential between the voices, which is especially important in this book. There are a lot of characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Audio | Orbit for this advanced listener copy.

I will definitely be keeping up with this series.

This book is best read on a throne, while wearing a crown tinged in blood.