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The curtain closes. My feet stay planted to the floor, not ready to leave just yet. Only once the lights dim and all actors have long left the stage do I slowly begin to feel the cushion of the seat digging into my shoulder blades.
A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann is a gripping fantasy story that made me dig my nails into the book's edges way too many times. We follow the life of a cursed child, Riven Hesper, whose only goal is to become a healer and hopefully reverse the curse that binds her to god-like creatures - the Players. Until all hope is lost, and with a little push, she finds herself in the middle of a casting call that could potentially be her ticket out of the grasp of death that clings to her ankles.
SPOILERS AHEAD
When actors and lies meet in a story, the readers start off carefully, trying to uncover the deception before it has the chance to blind them.
Guessing that Riven is actually a Player was quite quick; however, I underestimated the depth of this revelation. Still, the truth was revealed quite late and was let on in all chapters leading up to that moment, allowing other mysteries to move within the story unnoticed, or at least quiet enough for the reader not to think about them sufficiently to figure them out.
Overall, I loved all the characters and felt like we did not get enough of them, which I suppose is a good thing. It is always for the best to go out on a high note. The romantic connection between Riven and Jude was a rollercoaster. What at first felt slightly incomplete to me turned into the perfect piece to finish the puzzle. There was no need to dive deeper into their inner worlds that consisted of each other, because it was nothing new to them. It was familiar, stronger than any roles they ever played, always present.
In the finale, I found myself trying to hold Riven together as her costume slipped between my fingers. It was perfectly, frustratingly curated. Not being able to break the character, deus ex machina, breaking the fourth wall - incorporating these terms in such a creative way into the story was really up to my enjoyment. And of course, we cannot move on from the characters before mentioning how entertaining it was to watch Jude beg for a minute of peace in Riven's presence. As if his flair for dramatics was any better.
“The world is our stage.” The quote I heard too many times, but always looked only at its surface. I mistook it for a simple obsessive love for performing, while the whole time it pointed at the ongoing performance all around. I blissfully ignored Jude's replicas about always playing a character, although he definitely tried to get Riven (and maybe us) to understand that it is not just a harmless metaphor.
When it comes to plot holes in the story, I noticed a few, such as what happened to Marigold's body. However, most of them could be filled out with a bit of imagination, or the answer might already be in the story, and I simply missed it.
Nevertheless, I bought the book blindly and do not regret it. The story was easy to read, well-paced, with secrets and twists all around, which resulted in finishing it in a few days. Shannon J. Spann, thank you for pulling me into your story and not letting me go. I am afraid I wouldn't mind becoming a Reveler to stories like yours (minus the having my eyes taken from their sockets part). 5 stars.
