Review: Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

For this column, I like to cover a wide variety of books that I think will, in some way, connect with our geeky but diverse little community. So sometimes I venture into genres that I might not normally read myself, but others do. Such as romance.

Though it’s not exactly true that I don’t read them. I read a lot of them—professionally. As an editor, I’ve worked on over a hundred romance novels, many tied to fantasy, history, supernatural, and even science fiction genres.

I bring this up for a reason, because Assistant to the Villain hits close to home for me as an editor. It feels a lot like something that could easily have come across my desk.

And Hanna Nicole Maehrer does so many things that I normally consider mistakes in writing… but she makes them work.

This book is joyously aware of what it is. It is a workplace romance with a brooding sexy-as-hell boss with a tragic past and a variety of quirky co-workers, both friends and frienemies… transplanted into a fantasy setting.

The twist? The boss our protagonist works for happens to be the Big Bad Evil Guy your party of adventurers would be tasked with taking out.

Assistant to the Villain is goofy and cliché in all the ways you’d expect a rom-com to be. Is the protagonist pretty, awkward, bubbly, yet clumsy? You bet she is. Is the BBEG she secretly has naughty thoughts about secretly sympathetic and not as evil as he seems? Of course. Can you spot the “annoying b**ch” co-worker who will eventually become a sorta-friend from a mile off? Obviously.

But, although this sounds like someone’s fantasy fanfiction, it manages to be more than that… by not trying to be more than that.

Let me explain. When I’m editing someone’s story, I’ve got this little guide I made: Common Mistakes to Avoid. I compiled it over the last decade and give it to authors I’m working with for the first time as a handy reference, to help with their next editing pass. Sometimes I update it, and sometimes I review it so I don’t become blind to the problems I need to look out for.

Maehrer falls into many of the clichés that I would ordinarily tell my authors to avoid. So many that I lost count.

But that’s also how it conveys its vibe to the reader. It has to hit those notes for the humor to land. This feels like The Devil Wears Prada but with swords and magic, and it wants to remind you every step of the way that that is exactly what it is.

So, what is this story about? More importantly, does it rise above the gimmick I’ve just outlined?

Evie Sage is in a bit of a tight spot. Her brother died tragically and her mother abandoned them long ago. Her father is now chronically ill, and she still has a younger sister to help raise. She is also in desperate need of a job.

So when she ends up in a dark forest and encounters the kingdom’s most infamous Villain trying to escape the king’s Valiant Guards, it starts with a lot of clumsiness, and ends with a job offer.

The pay is too good to refuse, so she accepts. Granted, this means she sometimes comes to work only to see severed heads hanging from the ceiling, and her co-workers take bets as to which intern will be fed to the pet dragon this week, but overall she likes her job. Just not all of her co-workers.

Oh, and there’s a frog wearing a tiny crown who can only speak by holding up tiny signs with a single word written on each.

Her job is, as the title points out, to be the Villain’s assistant. This usually means office duties, but sometimes it requires a more hands-on approach with the staff. And when suspicion grows that there is a traitor in their midst, her position becomes all the more important, and dangerous.

Naturally, she needs to keep all this hidden from her family, who thinks she’s working for a rich family on the outskirts of town. But as the search for the traitor continues, her real work gets perilously close to home.

It’s safe to say shenanigans ensue.

On the surface, this story tries to be very black and white. After all, King Benedict’s most trusted men are called the Valliant Guards, while the Villain’s elite troops are the Malevolent Guards. Just about everyone working for the Villain has to wear enchanted rings that will poison them if they ever betray him. And did I mention the heads hanging from the ceiling earlier?

However, given the tone I’m conveying, you’ve no doubt deduced that the Villian isn’t quite as evil as he seems, and the King isn’t quite as benevolent as his name suggests. This, to me, is where the story gets interesting. As we learn more about the Villain’s backstory and even his family, we see things aren’t as black and white as the severed heads suggest.

To borrow a line from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s True Lies, when Jamie Lee Curtis asked him if he’s ever killed anyone: “Yeah, but they were all bad!”

At its core, Assistant to the Villain is a cozy story. And right now, that’s a vibe I think a lot of readers are going to want to get into. As much as I love high-octane adventure, sometimes I just want to chill and relax with a story.

A while back, I reviewed Legends & Lattes, which has a similar cozy vibe. And while L&L has a romantic subplot to it, that dynamic isn’t really the focus of the story. It’s a cozy fantasy, while this book is a cozy romance that is in a fantasy setting. But they are still largely aimed at the same audience.

Fun fact: this book is on track for being made into a TV series. I can see that working for a broader audience, so I’ll be curious to check it out.