Assistant to the Villain

Assistant to the Villain makes workplace incompetence almost forgivable, provided the manager is fictional and the severed heads are not yours.

I laughed more than I expected and winced more than the title prepared me for. Hannah Nicole Maehrer takes the old attraction to a dangerous man and gives it a practical inconvenience: somebody has to sort his correspondence. The joke works because Evie Sage needs wages, not an adventure. Her cheerful manner is less interesting as a personality trait than as a way of surviving a deeply unsuitable job.

I was won over by the central pair long before I was won over by the plot's machinery. That is both a recommendation and a warning. If you need tight fantasy politics, keep walking. If you like romantic yearning interrupted by an urgent administrative matter, pull up a chair.

The premise (no spoilers past Evie's new job)

Evie needs work to support her ailing family. An encounter with Rennedawn's notorious Villain leads to an offer to become his assistant, and she accepts. His headquarters houses mayhem, dangerous staff duties, and evidence that his enemies are not merely making rhetorical objections. As Evie settles in, she suspects somebody is sabotaging his operation. She must do the job, help identify the threat, and manage a growing crush on the man who signs her wages.

The Villain, Trystan Maverine, is not just a dramatic title floating above a black cloak. Maehrer gives him a place in the daily workings of the kingdom and then makes the day to day business of villainy absurd. That is all a new reader needs. The sabotage question can wait for the book.

What works

The comic contrast is unusually durable. Evie treats a lethal workplace as a workplace first. This could have been one joke repeated until somebody surrendered, but Maehrer keeps changing what the joke exposes. Sometimes it is the gap between the Villain's reputation and the dull labour required to maintain it. Sometimes it is Evie's capacity to keep her composure while the setting insists she ought to faint. Often it is the sight of two people trying to conceal the fact that the person across the desk has become the most important part of the working day.

The rhythm of the romantic exchanges matters. Maehrer favours quick turns, with earnest feeling undercut by a practical interruption or a grim little visual gag. The result is deliberately lighter than the blood in the setting suggests. A severed head overhead is horrifying in one register and a facilities issue in another. That unstable register is the book's signature. I found myself accepting a great deal of nonsense because the story knows exactly how ridiculous its central arrangement is.

Evie also has a reason to stay that is stronger than attraction. Her family's needs keep the joke from floating away. I never forgot that losing this job would have a cost, even when a scene leaned hard into whimsy. The sunny half of a grumpy sunshine pairing often gets reduced to free emotional catering. Evie has work to do and people depending on her. That gives her kindness a spine.

The two perspectives help as well. The Villain's side of the attraction is useful because it refuses to let his public menace be the whole personality. His private attention to Evie creates the comedy of a man capable of intimidation who cannot reliably manage one ordinary feeling. I know that sounds like an easy trick. It is. Easy tricks still need timing, and Maehrer usually has it.

What's polarising

The whimsy can become busy. A joke arrives, a dangerous development follows, and then another joke tugs at your sleeve before the danger has settled. I wanted the book to trust its darker implications for a little longer. Rennedawn has enough menace to sustain an uncomfortable pause. Maehrer sometimes rushes to reassure us that we may keep smiling.

The sabotage thread is a useful motor, but the central relationship gets the better lines and much of the attention. For me, the plot worked as pressure on Evie and Trystan rather than as a mystery I was desperate to solve. Readers who want every clue to click into a neat mechanism may find themselves reading ahead for the next awkward exchange instead. I did, and I refuse to pretend I am above it.

There is also a tonal bargain you must accept immediately. The violence is more than a decorative skull on the shelf, yet the book persistently treats villainy as a comic profession. If that sounds emotionally dishonest to you, the first few chapters will not talk you round. If you can hold horror and farce in the same hand, the mixture becomes oddly affectionate.

The Villain of it

Trystan is most appealing when the title cannot protect him from being legible. A feared employer still has to hear an assistant, answer a question, and notice when his own authority makes an honest reply difficult. Maehrer understands the appeal of a supposedly terrifying man becoming self conscious in exactly one person's presence. She also understands the power imbalance well enough to make Evie's continued need for the job matter.

I would not sell this as a study of wickedness. Its chief romantic pleasure is not the discovery that he can be cruel. It is watching his fierce persona fail to conceal ordinary concern. He is a grumpy boss with a kingdom sized reputation and the emotional discretion of a knocked over filing cabinet. I mean that fondly.

Spice and heat

Heat: 1 of 5, glimpses and kisses. The book runs on attraction, yearning, and comic restraint rather than explicit scenes. Adult fantasy romance does not guarantee a high heat level, and this opening volume is a good example. If your definition of a satisfying romance requires the bedroom door to open, you will have to get your satisfaction from the charged pauses instead.

The light romantic heat should not be mistaken for uniformly gentle content. The publisher notes blood, death, battle, serious injury, and references to sexual assault in backstory, as well as family estrangement and child abandonment. The comedy does not erase those subjects.

Who it's for

You like the moment a frightening person becomes embarrassingly attentive, and you are happy to spend most of a book watching that happen through missed signals and absurd working days. You can tolerate a fantasy kingdom whose most persuasive institution is, somehow, office administration. You value banter and chemistry above a flawless conspiracy puzzle.

If you want the humour quieter, try another book. Maehrer commits to the bit, including when I wished she would let a bruise remain a bruise. But I would read another round of Evie managing the Villain's affairs purely to see how long two competent people can avoid the one conversation neither of them is qualified to conduct.

Books like Assistant to the Villain

• Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, for a prickly relationship built through work, with drier humour and colder weather.
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen, for an odd fantasy workplace and an enemies to lovers correspondence with more emotional weight.
• Swordheart by T. Kingfisher, for adult fantasy romance that treats wit as an act of self defence.

Finished the book and not ready to leave? The Villain is waiting on Fictora.

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