The Villian By LJ Shen is the third in the Boston Belles book series. It comes after Sparrow and The Hunter, although the book can be read on its own as a standalone as well as it’s a complete story on its own as well. In this post, we will be doing a comprehensive review on The Villain LG Shen to figure out if this is one you should pick or skip!
The Plot
The plot of Boston Belles the Villian starts off messy. We meet, The Villain, billionaire bad boy Cillian Fitzpatrick, and Persephone, a preschool teacher. Instead of being each other’s love interests from the get-go, they start off on completely opposite sides.
For starters, Persephone is already married, but not happily. Her husband was a major gambling addict and ended up somehow losing a hundred thousand dollars to loan sharks. When he was unable to pay the loans off, he just up and disappeared, going into hiding until the storm blew over.
Now, what do loan sharks do if they can’t find someone and track down their family? And that’s exactly what happened, and Persephone got roped into some pretty crazy danger. The loan sharks demanded that she’d pay the loan off, but that’s virtually impossible on a preschool teacher’s salary. They gave her the option of figuring it out or finding other ways to pay up what’s owed.
In the panic of trying to figure out how to get the money, she thought of Cillian Fitzpatrick, a man that had saved her life once after an accident, the man she had been in love with ever since.
The only problem is that Cillian Fitzpatrick is Boston Belles The Villain, he’s more so the anti-hero, but that’s beside the point here. Cillian, nicknamed Kill, is a billionaire set to inherit his father’s oil company that he’s been working in for years, but there’s one thing standing in his way, his brother’s unborn child.
Kill’s father is obsessed with having an heir to pass on the family money to. So he straight up tells Kill if he doesn’t get a wife and son, fast, the company and family wealth will be gone as far as he’s concerned.
There’s a problem, though. While Kill is an attractive man, he’s cold and calculated, incapable of love. It was going to be especially hard for a man like that to find a wife, at least as fast as he needed one.
So, he decides to make Persephone an offer, take the money she needs, and get into an arranged marriage with him, so he can have the male child he needs to secure the company. A transactional marriage, nothing else.
There’s a bit of back and forth at first, but eventually, they get married, and Persephone is done with the whole debt situation but now owes Kill a child.
While all that was underway, Kill had to deal with a lifelong nemesis, Adam, dealing with his brother being too stupid for his own good, and everyone else in the storyline that just thrived on annoying him. We see a hostile takedown of Adam, Persephone’s husband’s momentary return, and a big secret that Kill’s been hiding the entire time, one that would explain why he is the cold man he is.
This book is basically about a man that knows there’s no happy life with a white picket fence for him, and we follow along to see if maybe, he can get there.
The chief positive and negative roles in The Villain
Persephone is a character that’s both a bit confusing and strong at the same time. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense why she was so in love with Kill even before the whole arrangement happened. She only saw him, and her heart was set, even though he was very rude to her throughout the book. However, she does fight back when he is rude and even manages to step in and help when he needs her.
In LJ Shen’s The Villain, Kill’s character is pretty unlikeable unless you’re trying to see him from Persephone’s love goggles. Unlike a regular anti-hero, he just didn’t really do anything good in the entire book that would make for a redeeming quality. https://karensingermd.com/ But he was still there to help Persephone when she needed it, so that’s something at least.
Adam is just a classic villain in the series, and it might’ve even been nice to have a whole book centered on taking him down.
Hunter wasn’t that major of a role in the book, but while he was there, he made sure to annoy everyone with his presence.
Most applauded dialogues or quotes in The Villain Boston Belles
I wasn’t quite sure any of these idiots were capable of taking care of anything more complex than a goldfish.
But if the media ever found out, my career would be as good as dead, and death was a specialty I’d left for Hunter’s brain cells.
The pigs called— they wanted their chauvinism back.
Overall review of The Villain
Boston Belles The Villain is certainly a book with potential. Even though the focus is supposed to be on Kill, it’s Persephone that shines throughout. She’s the one we see go through difficult decisions, having to work through those, just trying to make it out alive in the cruel world she’s in.
Kill’s character had the basis of a great anti-hero, but he lacked depth almost all the way through. There were lots of little moments that could’ve been harnessed throughout the book, like his sarcasm and passions, but every time we’d touch on something, the story would move on to the next big thing.
Although despite LJ Shen tells the story really well, it’s still quite the treat to read!
The Villain by LJ Shen got a 4.3/5 · Goodreads and is available on Amazon and all major physical and online bookstores. Just search The Villain LG Shen Amazon to find a copy for yourself.
