Once a Villain (Only a Monster, 3)

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Author(s)

Vanessa Len

Publisher

HarperCollins

Genre(s)

Age Range

13+

Release Date

August 19, 2025

ISBN

978-0063024748

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Joan has failed to stop Eleanor.

Now Eleanor rules over a cruel new timeline where monsters live openly among humans, preying on them and subjugating them.

Nick—once a hero to humans, and Joan’s first love—is tormented by the choice he made to save her over the timeline itself. And Aaron—the ruthless heir to a powerful monster family—now finds himself in a world where monsters have power beyond imagining while his feelings for Joan grow.

Wrenched between love and rivalry, the three of them must negotiate their fractured pasts to survive the new world and restore what was lost. Because only they remember that there was once a better timeline.

But how will they defeat a whole world of monsters with control over time itself?

Editor review

1 review

Spoiler's Ahead!

September 13, 2025 (Updated: June 04, 2026)

Overall rating

5.0

Plot

5.0

Characters

5.0

Writing Style

5.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Once a Villain was like returning to an old friend for a new adventure. Joan was able to protect Nick, Aaron, Jaime, and Ruth when her sister, Eleanor, took control of the timeline and changed it to her ideal. This allows for immediate action because Joan doesn’t have to locate them and convert them to her cause.
Eleanor’s ideal is a horrific version of the world where monsters rule openly and every human is subject to giving 50 years of their life in service or in time travel magic. Human life is cheap, and they are suffering horribly in the gladiator colosseum, their heads on spikes and other degrading horrors. However, Eleanor has pushed the timeline to breaking by twisting events too far from its original structure. There are rifts everywhere, and fear that they will all die in the void soon.
Vanessa Len has built a solid foundation for Joan to love Nick as she did in the original timeline and is her soulmate. However, through all their trials and tribulations, she has strong feelings for Aaron. I left book two not knowing which relationship to root for because both were solid. I expected something to happen to make the love triangle shift to a clear choice. I was not prepared for it to turn into a why choose relationship for a YA audience. While it is kept to a kiss between the three, the mere thinking about them all being in a relationship was sensational, making it a bit risque for younger YA audiences. Personally, it all happened authentically and left me happy that neither one was villainized or killed to downgrade their selection, but the YA reader I was with, who doesn’t love romance in books, had a harder time with this portion of the book.
While we go into the book knowing that Joan must succeed, the events within were fair game, and I never knew what was going to happen. I love the fondness for the characters that comes out in the author’s handling of them. The resolution of the love interests was unexpected for a YA book, but I loved it even more as a result of the decision to keep them together. Overall, this book is definitely going on the personal shelf to be reread.