GUYS. I really wanted to love Academy of Villains, but… this one just didn’t work for me. I’m actually so frustrated because the concept? AMAZING. Assassins, forbidden magic, secret societies—like, HOW could this go wrong? But unfortunately, it didn’t deliver, and I’m left feeling kind of meh about the whole thing.

Let’s start with the romance. It’s enemies-to-lovers, but barely. Like, I’m all for some angst and slow-burn tension, but this? It was so rushed that I couldn’t even feel the enemies part. He was into her immediately, and it made their whole dynamic fall flat. Where’s the hatred? The banter? The spark that makes me SCREAM? It just wasn’t there.

The plot… oof. It was predictable to the point where I was rolling my eyes at some of the “twists.” And the academy setting? Completely wasted. You tell me “dark academia,” and I’m expecting scheming, morally gray characters, and ALL the vibes. Instead, it felt surface-level, like the world was barely developed. I wanted so much more.

And don’t even get me started on the pacing—it was ALL over the place. Some parts dragged, while others rushed through important moments that deserved more attention. It felt like the story didn’t know what it wanted to be.

The writing? Honestly, not great. Repetitive, unsophisticated, and it felt like the author didn’t trust the reader to pick up on things without spelling them out. It just didn’t feel polished or engaging, which made it hard to stay invested.

I will say, the premise was solid, and there were a few moments that had potential. But overall, it felt like a rough draft rather than a finished book.

Would I read the sequel? Honestly, probably not. There’s potential here, but it needs a lot of work to bring it to life.

If you’re into:
✧ Assassin FMC (but don’t expect much depth)
✧ A super light enemies-to-lovers (if you squint)
✧ Forbidden magic

…maybe give it a try, but personally, this one missed the mark. 2/5 stars.

This book was so magical. I absolutely loved it. I couldn’t put it down Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this

Such an interesting story, it’s been a while since I’ve read something that had my attention but this book was everything!
I’m so excited to learn more about the heartstrings and to find out what happens next.
I absolutely adored our main characters and how they overcame their differences and fears for the greater good.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Ever King has the ability to put you in a whole new world and make you want to not stop reading. This was a dark academia themed romantasy filled with Mythology. I thought it was well written and plotted out. I was hooked from the beginning. I definitely recommend this book to the fantasy/Mythology/romantasy readers out there. I can't wait to read more from this author.

Thank you Net Galley ARC and Ever King

It was definitely a cute story. I am unfamiliar with the Greek mythology story this is based on. It was giving harry potter vibes but then it got very interesting. I thought it was a bit predictable and the FMC was strong at first and then it was really just the MMC protecting her the entire time. I feel like everything moved so fast that I just couldn’t really connect with them. I think I’ll read the next book maybe.

Kiara is an assassin tasked with killing the prince of her kingdom. She must enter the magic academy the prince attends and complete her kill, but instead finds herself entering the academy with magical abilities she was previously unaware of. Kiara believes she can end the curse on the kingdom by completing her task.
In a magical academy setting, with games and trials and secret societies, there is plenty to love about this story. Kiara is headstrong and struggles with the introduction to her magical abilities as a rare and powerful mage. She has to integrate into the school and form relationships, and trust her new friend Octavia to help her through classes.
Lucian, the cursed prince, learns about more about the kingdom and non magical people from Kiara, who has grown up away from mages and high society. Though he is privileged and powerful, he shows he is so much more than that.
The minor characters in this story were vibrant, whether the spoilt students challenging Kiara’s right to be there, the professors who make an example of her, Lucian’s friends or Octavia supporting Kiara.
The plot was well structured, though I’m not familiar with the story of Nyx and Erebus to know whether this aligns closely to it. I loved the trials toward the end of the story.
I enjoyed this story and will definitely keep an eye out for the next book in the series, and future releases from Ever King.

If you’ve ever wished for a grown-up version of Harry Potter with a dark, twisted edge and a true enemies-to-lovers romance, Academy of Villains is your answer. I was hooked from start to finish. Slytherin girls, this is your moment, line up, because this book is your next obsession.

With morally gray characters, a razor-sharp plot, and a deliciously tense romance, it delivers everything you didn’t know you needed in a dark academia fantasy. Trust me, you’ll be spellbound. I’m already counting down the days until my inevitable reread!

As someone who is not a big fantasy reader, I really enjoyed this book! The magic system was really easy to understand and I liked how within the boom if there were unique words to this fantasy world in the text it would explain what it was. The angst and the romance were great aspects without being super overpowering to the main plotline. I do wish there was more dialogue over descriptions (personal preference) there were paragraphs where my eyes glazed over like details that could be done without. I still do not really understand the title connection if I am being perfectly honest I thought it would click as I was reading but it never did, but maybe I am just dense.

Thank you for the eARC! I really enjoyed this book! The plot was very interesting and kept me engaged. I would recommend to other romantasy readers! It does hold up to the throne of glass meets Harry Potter description!

This was so unexpectedly awesome! I am a huge fan of dark academia, dark fantasy, romantacy. This delivered in all genres. The magic, the romance burn, and the suspense were all really well done. Once I picked it up I kept wanting to come back to it. I also loved the mythos that was sprinkled in for those of us that are fans of Greek mythology.

Tropes I loved were: enemies to lovers, touch her and die, shadow daddy says so, slow burn.

Very well done Ever! I can't wait to read the next one.

I liked the concept of a magic academy and a girl who’s out of place with a prince love interest! However, it was very quick paced especially in the beginning few chapters and also it was very very similar to Harry’s potter with one of the characters even being called Bellatrix!

Overall I did enjoy reading this book but it felt quite rushed and familiar <3

Thank you Netgalley and Ever King for this Arc.

****This was such ana amazing read****

***Enemies to lovers***

***One bed***
***Harry Potter and Greek mythology vibes****

Kiara is sent to kill the Prince but there is more to the story that she soon finds out.

I am so excited to read the next book!!!

****A MUST READ****

DNF'd at 35%

I really thought I'd like this book based off of the summary but I had two main issues with it.

Firstly, it reminded me too much of the Harry Potter series. One of the reviews did mention Slytherin but I didn't think it would be so on the nose. The school has four houses. They have classes like Herbology, Care of Magical Beasts, History of Magic, and so on.

Secondly, there seemed to be little to no logic behind the characters' decisions. For example:

- On the first day, the 'Battle Magic' professor has students fighting with magic, though some of the students were just accepted the night before and don't know how to use magic. When Kiara is made to battle a student, she ends up knocking the student out physically with her grimoire. Instead of her being reprimanded, the professor just chuckles.

- During Care of Magical Beasts, it's mentioned that multiple students have died during the class. There seem to be no safety measures in place, as on their first day, they're asked to capture creatures that can paralyze and kill them (though, we never see the aftermath of that. Kiara goes off into the woods to find one, gets distracted by another assassin that sneaks onto the schoolgrounds, and then is called by the professor telling her that class is over and that they're going back to the school).

- Lucian, the love interest finds out fairly on that Kiara is planning on killing him. Instead of being worried, he plans a dinner?? Seriously, he sneaks into the kitchens and waits for her to come to kill him in his sleep. Then, after her attempt fails, he doesn't tell anyone that there's an assassin at the school??? His friends literally only know because one of them overheard her talking about killing Lucian.

- For some reason, despite that being one of two of their interactions, he is obsessed with her, calling her beautiful and the like. She's somewhat the same; though she still wants to kill him, she blushes around him and feels fluttery feelings in her chest.

- Kiara TELLS the Headmaster that she's a part of a group of assassins. He doesn't really do anything about this.

- Kiara decides to poison Lucian, and asks a random girl at the greenhouse for advice on an 'assignment'. The school apparently has multiple plants that can kill its students, and the random girl is all too easily convinced into telling this new student all about them.

I'm not sure if the book gets any better from here, but this is around where I stopped. I was interested in the different types of magic (Starmage, Shadowmage, Firemage, etc) but it wasn't enough to keep me interested. It also wasn't really explained how the students are sorted into the four houses, though it may be explained later on.

I absolutely adored Kiara! She is a strong, capable FMC that does not need saving. In fact she is likely to save you.
Lucian was an enjoyable MMC, he surprised me on a few occasions.
I enjoyed the Greek mythology references and similarities throughout.
The plot is fast paced and keeps the story moving forward and your interest peaked.
The villian in the story is truly someone you are on board with hating and want to see taken down.
I liked that the story kept me guessing and I was constantly trying to work out the clues and call what was going to happen with the information we are given.
I am definitely looking forward to book 2.

2.5 stars

I enjoyed this book but it is, by no means, a good book. There is a ton of potential in there, there are some good things (that are really good, too) but on the whole, this book is just bad. You have to suspend your disbelief, and then suspend it again, and again, and again. And it seems like it is out of laziness, because a lot of the issues could have been resolved pretty easily.
This book is also pretty similar to Zodiac Academy, minus the bullies. Mind me, if we speak about personal enjoyment, I enjoyed this one way more than the other series, but if we speak about things well done, well, the other series wins without questions.
I will try with a bullet list, because it seems a tad more easy to explain things:

1)At the beginning of the book the author says “There are no heroes in this story” and when we meet the MCs for the first time, this seems to stand true: she is an assassin who is there to kill the prince, he is a prince with his friends, and the group seems full of badass people who are up to no good. (again, if you have read Zodiac Academy, the male characters are really similar). But as the story progresses, we lose the “we are all bad” aura, and since the characters find themselves involved in a quest (let’s call it that) to save the kingdom and the magic against the bad king well… they are heroes. They may not be the “knight in shining armor” kind of hero, but still, they are the good guys, no questions.
So why? It’s not just bad that the first thing we read is a lie, but the change in tone has no reason to it. Why do you start one way and then do such a radical change?

2)There are so many plot holes in there that it is like trying to navigate the story walking on Swiss cheese. I don’t really want to make spoilers, but I will just name one or two. Kiara is an assassin who is recruited to kill the prince at the Academy. This Academy is a magical school where all the young mages are sent, it is a highly protected place (even royalty attend it and all the rich scions of the biggest families of the kingdom), it has wards everywhere and they are the strongest you can imagine. Evidently, the wards do not stop assassins, only magic. Why? How do they work? It wasn’t possible to create wards against people who were not supposed to be there? They have all the magic of the world and… assassins just walk past them like that? Sure, they have to evade the patrols but still, it doesn’t seem like hard work infiltrating this place!
And then Kiara fails in her first attempt and she finds herself in the sorting ceremony, with no easy way out she takes part in that and… oh wow, she has magic! So she now is a student of the Academy. Not only that, but she is the special one, the one with the kind of magic nobody else has (obviously) and everybody goes along with that. Don’t they have a list of the people who were supposed to start the year there? A number of expected people? Something? Sure, at one point the headmaster figured out that there was something strange here, but not right away, like some weeks after she was enrolled. How is that possible??

3)We are told a lot of things. We don’t see them. Like, this academy should be something really harsh, where only the fittest survive (think like Fourth Wing kind of place) but all we get is some sentences overheard here and there like “Ehy, did you hear that once this professor let the students be eaten by the bests??” “Sure, but the headmaster told to keep an eye on things because it was bad for public relations” or something like that. (These are not direct quotes, but the kind of dialogues our MC overheard are like that). And there are a lot of elements that are inserted in the story that aren’t really developed or explained.

4)The sheer waste of potential. We have some intriguing characters, all the prince’s friends sound pretty amazing in their own right, and they are not the only ones, there are a couple of students we met who are intriguing as heck. The point is, if without showing us a lot of them around, the author manages to create something so interesting, how great things would have been if they received their share of attention? And we have a magical school with some really cool lessons! But we just see them the bare minimum and then… that’s it. It would have been great to explore that world and that school!

It is just that we have so many plot holes and so many things that don’t really work if you stop and think about them. And this is what makes a book a bad one. There are no excuses. That said, I have to admit that I enjoyed it. Because, well, first and foremost, I was in the right mood for it and this helped a lot. But there are good things in there, mind me. The writing is compelling, and the world the author creates is beautiful. There is such beauty between these pages! And I think that this is also what made things so bad: the author obviously is good at creating worlds and magic and characters, so why the plot is just a big hole with something around it??

My rating is 2.5 stars, but I round it up at 3 because I still enjoyed it, I was pretty mad from time to time, but I wasn’t tempted to DNF because it was compelling and I was having fun, somehow.

This book started out really strong and I had high hopes, but at some point it went flat and I started to lose interest.

Kiara is one of the Nameless, aka the King’s Assassins. Lucien (AKA the Prince) is away at school for mages and while Kiara is there to kill him, she’s mistaken as a student and “sorted” in a ceremony eerily similar to a very famous wizarding school ceremony. (IYKYK) While at school, discovers she’s actually a mage, the people she hates most in this world. She basically has to decide if she wants to give up her mission to kill the prince and study magic or continue with her original goal - kill the prince and get rid of magic forever.

The end was just…boring. I guess I expected a lot more. I am hoping the series picks up more in the next book! Thank you to Ever King and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review.

I really enjoyed this book! The plot was very interesting and kept me engaged throughout. I would definitely recommend to other romantasy readers and finish this series!

I love a book with quality world building and this one did not disappoint. WE are taken immediately into the Academy by why if Kiara, one of The Nameless who is an assassin. What Kiara isn’t ready for is what she finds once she gets inside and her resolve for murder is called in to question. As she and the prince she is meant to murder embark on a journey together they may be able to change the fate of their world. With roots in Greek mythology this story is a page turner, I read the whole thing 448 pages, in one sitting! I am more than ready for book 2!

~Thanks to NetGalley and Ever King for the ARC!~

3.5 stars

“He was the darkness I craved, and I was the light he couldn’t escape.”

First few chapters were slow and not much action but when the actin starts it gets good! It’s definitely more of a young adult/under 18 vibe to me having read some really high level fantasy books but I thoroughly enjoyed the world and story line. Love the dual POV (that’s always a fav of mine). Action/fight scenes are well written. Note: I thought this was written for a younger audience the way the writing style is. But then there was a bell pepper spice scene and a closed door scene that threw me for a loop.






++++Spoiler Alert++++






Random notes as I was reading:
—A few times the princes friends said they overheard something or saw something that put the princes life in danger. But they don’t mention it for days. Even though they are supposed to be his body guards basically??
—Sometimes when there is a “revelation” they move on too quickly in the conversation. I want more discussion/details!
—WILD that those with magic and those without have a different version of history and what is currently happening in their worlds
—The king has Many secrets!! He’s the bad guy but I wanna know what it issss.
—“Don’t play the hero and leave me behind.”…“I don’t want to face this darkness alone anymore. I can’t keep pretending I’m okay when I’m not.”…”Then stop pretending. You don’t have to hide it. Not from me.”
—The writing could use a bit more polish and transitions. Felt like sometimes there wasn’t enough detail and sometimes there’s too much.
-Overall enjoyed the book!

✨ARC Review✨
Thank you NetGalley and @authoreverking for the arc!
I loved this book! Devoured it pretty quickly. It’s as if Harry Potter was a dark fantasy romance about an assassin. Wrong place right time vibes. Loved the enemies to lovers and the intrigue between the MMC and FMC. Such a cool magic system and I loved the setting of a magic academy. And I’m also a sucker for anything Greek mythology. Definitely recommend for any fans of Harry potter, lovers of trials and fantasy. Thank you again so much for this book! I can’t wait for the next one! 🙏🏼❤️