The Villain: Boston Belles, Book 2

THIS STORY!I’ve been dying to read Cillian’s story since we met him in The Hunter. No one, and I mean NO ONE, writes alphaholes like LJ Shen. They are in a class of their own- perhaps even deserving of a new label. Shenholes. And, in this Hades and Persephone retelling, Cillian may be the new King of the Shenholes.But here’s the thing about Shenholes: no matter how extreme they are in terms of their behavior, they are always capable of growth and redemption—at least in relation to their leading lady. And that’s one of the many things that makes them so irresistible. In this book, the Villain’s struggle is unique, but Hades, no matter how dark and cold he wants to be, has the ability to feel. He just needs the right goddess/queen to spark those feelings to life.As the story begins, we are introduced to Persephone, or Persy, and her unrequited love for the cold, ruthless billionaire Cillian. Persy is serving as a bridesmaid in Sailor and Hunter’s wedding, and weaves a crown of bleeding heart, a heart-shaped flower, as an accessory. What she doesn’t realize is that the beautiful bloom is poisonous to the touch, and she goes into anaphylactic shock. Cillian, albeit reluctantly, helps her. She glimpses a cloud in the sky and decides to take a chance. Years before, Persy’s beloved aunt passed away, on her deathbed assuring Persy that she would be there for her in the form of a cloud, and she would grant Persy a wish, just once, when she needed her most. Persy, with full faith in her Aunt’s promise, tells Cillian she wants him to fall in love with her. She is devastated when he snubs her, coldly, making a promise of his own: he will never love her.Persy, fanciful though she is with her belief in the wish-granting powers of cloud-aunts, is also practical. She moves on almost immediately, marrying the good-looking, fun-loving Paxton. The story picks up three years later, and Paxton has skipped town due to gambling debts, leaving Persephone penniless and at the mercy of dangerous men. To save her own life, she turns to Cillian for a loan. He counters with a proposal. Cillian, who has recently taken the reins of his father’s company, has pissed off a lot of people, and needs to rehab his image, stat. He tells her he will bail her out if she will do the same for him—by marrying him and producing a Fitzpatrick heir.It’s hard for me to write much more without giving away spoilers, so I’ll just stop there and offer some character commentary. One of my absolute favorite things about LJ Shen’s books are her three-dimensional characters. They are multiplicities, embodying what makes us human–the many contradictions of self, the ways that we can be several things at once, things that don’t even seem like they would make sense or be possible to exist together in one body, but somehow they do. Persy is simultaneously whimsical, yet pragmatic; fiercely independent, yet ready to sign her life away and resign herself to a loveless existence. She is determined to find cracks in Cillian’s walls, willing to take big risks, and able to take quite a lot of Cillian’s unfeeling remarks and laugh at them–yet at other times, she gets discouraged and hurt relatively easily. But what else would we expect from a woman who is cast as the mythological Persephone, who was at once the Goddess of the Springtime and the Queen of the Underworld?Cillian is more of an enigma than many of Shen’s previous characters. He really is unfeeling and apathetic in the extreme, a coldly cruel workaholic who seems completely willing to throw Persy to the wolves. Throughout the book, I found myself muttering “this MF!” multiple times at the horrifying things he puts Persy through, the things that come out of his mouth. Yet nearly from the beginning of the book we get glimpses of Cillian’s humanity, flashes of something that might be feeling–despite his desire to be made of stone–making it clear that all is not what it seems. Again, not wanting to spoil, I won’t give much detail about what that is, but I will say that it had a personal resonance with me and I was struck by Shen’s inclusion of an issue that is widely misunderstood and I’ve honestly never seen written about in a romance novel. And, as always, Cillian’s excessive jerk behavior through the book makes it that much more satisfying when he is vanquished by his queen of darkness/goddess of springtime.Hands-down my favorite read of the year.

*****Spoilers*****Mind blown with this one, the reveal towards the end was not what I expected at all. Cillian and Persephone get together by way of an unconventional bargain marriage of convenience whereby he pays off some debts for her and gets her a divorce from her husband, and he gets respectability by way of a wife with a pristine reputation and heirs for his family's oil business. Intrigue ensues and the book slowly and fully unravels Cillian's personality, beliefs, and drive.Persephone fell for him and hard way back when, gets married to someone else when Cillian scares her off, only to be left high and dry by that husband so many years later with a crushing debt and no way to pay it back. For some reason I still don't understand, after she's threatened, Persephone sees Cillian as her savior even though she's best friends with two women that would and had the means to give her the money. Instead, Persephone bargains with Cillian to accept his marriage proposal and get a couple of things in return, one of which is a stipulation that they make the children the good old fashioned way and refusing to do it via invitro. Despite this, Cillian is determined to remain distant and emotionless and tells Persephone he has no heart to give her. Even so, since Persephone is idealistic and determined to drag love from him kicking and screaming, she does her best to reorganize Cillian's life in a way that she's in it more often and in a much more meaningful way than if the marriage was truly arranged for heirs and credibility for Cillian.Problems arise, the most obvious that Persephone gets frustrated when her plan to evoke feelings from Cillian haven't come to fruition as easily or quickly as she no doubt wanted them to. Sighs at this. Though I understand the desire she had to open him to her, I was frustrated with her expectations that it would be hearts and rainbows in a few months. She throws in the towel rather easily in my opinion and after learning Cillian had her followed by his security team against her wishes and hinted that he'd gone back to his escort services, she's determined she's done. She exits and without going into too much detail, refuses to return until he admits his feelings for her. Even though I rushed through the plot and there was a bit more to it than that, the book was still a page turner. I loved Cillian, his dry wit and ability to get straight to the point were refreshing. That he was rude and a bit on the violent side seemed to add up with the rest of his character. I laughed more than once at the banter between him and his friends as well as with the rest of the people in the book.Persephone kept to her job as a teacher even after her marriage to an oil billionaire CEO. Coincidentally, she was in the right position to help Cillian out of a lawsuit by a business rival and former friend Andrew, from his school years. Persephone brought Andrew down after working to help tutor his son who had Tourette Syndrom, similarly to Cillian, who was being physically abused by his father Andrew in an attempt to cure his son of Tourette Syndrom in a way he had before for Cillian.I enjoyed the supporting characters, their different personalities and interests. Some of the themes I found I found to be eye rolling but not so much that it diminished the story for me. The best part was learning the why behind who Cillian was which made him more likeable.