Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. In this week’s Waiting on Wednesday, I highlight the epic upcoming end to a particularly cool young adult fantasy series with Once a Villain by Vanessa Len.
Over the last couple of years, one of my favourite young adult fantasy series has been the Only a Monster trilogy by Australian author Vanessa Len. Starting in 2022 with Len’s debut novel, Only a Monster, the series followed a teenage girl who finds out that she is part monster, a being who can drain life from humans in order to time travel. Len pulled together a fascinating narrative for this first book, as the protagonist is forced to flee through time after her crush is revealed to be a vengeful monster slayer. This first book proved to be an excellent read, and Only a Monster was one of my favourite debuts and favourite pieces of Australian fiction in 2022.
Len kept the series going strong in 2023, with the intense follow-up Never a Hero. An intriguing sequel, Never a Hero featured a compelling plot in an alternate timeline that cleverly mirrored the first book, as the protagonist is dragged back into the world of monsters, this time fleeing from previous allies who no longer remember her. I deeply enjoyed this outstanding second book, especially as Len worked in some excellent twists and dark secrets, and Never a Hero was one of my favourite sequels and Australian novels of 2023.
Due to how much I enjoyed the first two books in the series, as well as the awesome and dark cliffhanger Len left Never a Hero on, I have been extremely keen to see how the Only a Monster trilogy comes to an end. It looks like we don’t have too much longer to wait as the third and final book, Once a Villian, is set for release in August 2025. Pitting the protagonist against a nefarious enemy who has manipulated time and brought about a monster-ruled dystopia, Once a Villain looks set to be a particularly thrilling and powerful final addition to the series. I have no doubt that Len will bring this series to an incredible end, and I cannot wait to see what elaborate and emotionally charged adventures await her compelling protagonists in this final book, which will probably be one of the best young adult fantasy reads of 2025.
Plot Synopsis:
The finale in the contemporary fantasy Only a Monster trilogy from Vanessa Len—which New York Times bestselling authors Holly Black, Chloe Gong, and Stephanie Garber called “delightful,” “captivating,” and “unputdownable”—will take Joan into the darkest timeline in the monster world, as she fights to restore the world she remembers.
Joan has failed to stop Eleanor.
Now restored, the thirteenth family rules ruthlessly over a new London in which monsters live openly among humans, preying on them and subjugating them.
Only Joan and her friends Aaron and Nick remember that there was once a better timeline. Now, as they negotiate their fractured pasts and face wrenching emotional decisions, they must fight to survive the new world and fix the broken timeline.
But how will they defeat a whole family of monsters with power over time itself?
The Unseen Library 