Week 37 Reviews: Only a Monster, Never a Hero, Once a Villain

l;

From Goodreads:

With the sweeping romance of Passenger and the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song, this standout YA contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, is the first in a planned trilogy.

It should have been the perfect summer. Sent to stay with her late mother's eccentric family in London, sixteen-year-old Joan is determined to enjoy herself. She loves her nerdy job at the historic Holland House, and when her super cute co-worker Nick asks her on a date, it feels like everything is falling into place.

But she soon learns the truth. Her family aren't just eccentric: they're monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And Nick isn't just a cute boy: he's a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to bring them down.

As she battles Nick, Joan is forced to work with the beautiful and ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family that hates her own. She'll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .

. . . she is not the hero.

From Goodreads:

Joan has saved her family and reset the timeline. Now, Nick is just an ordinary boy and Aaron is again her enemy. But Joan must find a way to re-gather her old allies when the real threat returns – the woman who created Nick. Eleanor, the most dangerous member of the Monster Court.

As the stakes rise—and Nick gets perilously closer to discovering the truth of what Joan did to him—Joan advances deeper into the monster world. When she's captured by the Monster Court itself, she uncovers a secret of her own. She and Eleanor are the last members of a thirteenth monster family—a family erased from the timeline by the King. Eleanor has been fighting to restore them.

But when Joan glimpses the dark timeline their family once ruled over—and Nick's role in it —she finds herself once again torn between love and family and monstrous choices as she battles to prevent Eleanor from bringing back their family and ushering in a terrible future.

From Goodreads:

The final book in the lauded Only a Monster trilogy is here—where the unstoppable love and high stakes of Divine Rivals meets the propulsive thrills of This Savage Song in a last-ditch, breathless race against time.

Joan has failed to stop Eleanor.

Now Eleanor rules over a cruel new timeline where monsters live openly among humans, preying on them and subjugating them.

Nick—once a hero to humans, and Joan's first love—is tormented by the choice he made to save her over the timeline itself. And Aaron—the ruthless heir to a powerful monster family—now finds himself in a world where monsters have power beyond imagining while his feelings for Joan grow.

Wrenched between love and rivalry, the three of them must negotiate their fractured pasts to survive the new world and restore what was lost. Because only they remember that there was once a better timeline.

But how will they defeat a whole world of monsters with control over time itself?

My first review of Only a Monster, Never a Hero
My Review:

Author: Vanessa Len
Series: Monsters #1, 2, 3 
First Read: April 18th, 2022, December 4th, 2023

Read: September 9th, 9th, 9th, 2025
Source: Own/Library, Own, Edelweiss 
Reason Why: Rereading, and they're Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Books, and Once a Villain is a End of Series 2025 Book and a WoW Book! 
Publisher: Harper Teen
Published: February 22nd 2022, August 29th 2023, August 19th 2025

Only a Monster:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Never a Hero:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Once a Villain:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars