ALL HAIL CHAOS

After the bloody finale of Long Live Evil (2024), Rachel Parilla must set Key’s story to rights before she can go back to her own life.

Rae—or, as she’s known to the people of Eyam, Lady Rahela Domitia—has failed in her mission to steal the Flower of Life and Death, which she was promised would cure her “true” body of cancer. Her patchy memory of the fantasy series into which a mysterious stranger offered her escape helped her play the part of a mystic prophet to great success. But she forgot how her favorite character, the villainous Emperor, got that title in the first place. And now her beloved guard, Key, has returned from a violent death and claimed his power as a god-ruler at the wrong moment—before he can learn kindness and mercy from the rightful heroine. Rahela, the sexy villainess who died early in the books before Rae took over her part, betrayed Key at the moment of his death, lost the Flower of Life and Death, and, worst of all, fears that she’s destroyed Key’s chance at his happy ending. As if the loss of Rae’s path home weren’t bad enough, she’s certain she’ll lose her life in Eyam, too; Key claims he wants to marry her and make her his evil queen, but Rae knows from the books about the Emperor’s vengeance toward those who wronged him, and she knows she needs to move fast before she gets her heart ripped out—literally. Brennan’s fantastic sequel deepens and complicates themes from the first book, with explorations of the way ill and disabled people are treated by society, who is deemed worthy of love in fiction, and what it means to mark someone as a hero or villain. The world of Eyam is a loving homage to fantasy romance all the way down to the purple prose—which, in Brennan’s hands, makes any other style of writing seem dull gray by comparison. Between the brilliant character work, thrilling adventure sequences, devious political intrigue among the ministers of Eyam, and laugh-out-loud humor, it’s hard to imagine anyone not enjoying this series.

A must-read if there ever was one.