Five years after the explosive confrontation in Merit City, the ashes of vengeance have not cooled; they have simply been buried under the weight of new ambitions. In V.E. Schwab’s world, being "ExtraOrdinary" is not a gift but a psychological scar—a manifestation of the moment a human mind collided with the abyss and refused to let go. While the legendary rivalry between Victor Vale and Eli Ever has shifted into a period of cold dormancy, the vacuum of power they left behind has become a siren song for those who refuse to be victims.
The narrative shifts between the clinical, cold survival of established players and the fiery emergence of Marcella Riggins. Marcella is not interested in the philosophical debates of her predecessors; she views power as a tool for total reclamation. As she begins to carve a path through the underworld of Merit City, she forces the hidden EOs out of the shadows, challenging the idea that one must choose between being a hero or a villain when one could simply be the master of the game.
The world-building in Vengeful expands upon the gritty, urban reality of Merit City and the clinical bureaucracy of EON—the government organization dedicated to tracking and neutralizing EOs. The "magic" system remains rooted in the Near-Death Experience (NDE) logic, where the last thought or desire before death dictates the power gained upon return. This creates an atmosphere where every ability is a psychological echo of trauma, making the setting a pressure cooker of individuals whose very existence is a defiance of natural law. The atmosphere is one of noir-infused tension, where the city itself feels like a hunting ground.
Character development in the first half of the book focuses on the erosion of the self and the complexity of "found family." Victor is no longer the untouchable mastermind; he is a man fighting an internal war against his own failing body, which introduces a layer of vulnerability to his cold persona. Sydney’s arc shifts from a child in need of protection to a young woman seeking agency, creating a tense dynamic with Victor as she realizes her powers are a commodity others want to exploit. Their relationship is a study in how sociopathy and genuine care can uncomfortably coexist.
Schwab continues to subvert the traditional superhero trope by removing the concept of altruism entirely. There are no capes or secret identities here, only survivors with varying degrees of trauma. The book leans into the "Vigilante" trope but strips away the moral high ground, showing that the line between a "hero" and a "monster" is usually drawn by whoever survives the fight. By introducing Marcella, the narrative also explores the "Feminine Rage" trope, moving away from the trope of a woman being a mere motivation for a male lead and instead giving the survivor the power to dismantle the systems that tried to discard her.
Five years after the explosive confrontation in Merit City, the ashes of vengeance have not cooled; they have simply been buried under the weight of new ambitions. In V.E. Schwab’s world, being "ExtraOrdinary" is not a gift but a psychological scar—a manifestation of the moment a human mind collided with the abyss and refused to let go. While the legendary rivalry between Victor Vale and Eli Ever has shifted into a period of cold dormancy, the vacuum of power they left behind has become a siren song for those who refuse to be victims.
The narrative shifts between the clinical, cold survival of established players and the fiery emergence of Marcella Riggins. Marcella is not interested in the philosophical debates of her predecessors; she views power as a tool for total reclamation. As she begins to carve a path through the underworld of Merit City, she forces the hidden EOs out of the shadows, challenging the idea that one must choose between being a hero or a villain when one could simply be the master of the game.
The world-building in Vengeful expands upon the gritty, urban reality of Merit City and the clinical bureaucracy of EON—the government organization dedicated to tracking and neutralizing EOs. The "magic" system remains rooted in the Near-Death Experience (NDE) logic, where the last thought or desire before death dictates the power gained upon return. This creates an atmosphere where every ability is a psychological echo of trauma, making the setting a pressure cooker of individuals whose very existence is a defiance of natural law. The atmosphere is one of noir-infused tension, where the city itself feels like a hunting ground.
Character development in the first half of the book focuses on the erosion of the self and the complexity of "found family." Victor is no longer the untouchable mastermind; he is a man fighting an internal war against his own failing body, which introduces a layer of vulnerability to his cold persona. Sydney’s arc shifts from a child in need of protection to a young woman seeking agency, creating a tense dynamic with Victor as she realizes her powers are a commodity others want to exploit. Their relationship is a study in how sociopathy and genuine care can uncomfortably coexist.
Schwab continues to subvert the traditional superhero trope by removing the concept of altruism entirely. There are no capes or secret identities here, only survivors with varying degrees of trauma. The book leans into the "Vigilante" trope but strips away the moral high ground, showing that the line between a "hero" and a "monster" is usually drawn by whoever survives the fight. By introducing Marcella, the narrative also explores the "Feminine Rage" trope, moving away from the trope of a woman being a mere motivation for a male lead and instead giving the survivor the power to dismantle the systems that tried to discard her.
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Find Vengeful V.E. Schwab in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Find Vengeful V.E. Schwab in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
7 books in catalog
A bargain made in the dark of night rarely ends with a soul intact. Whether following a woman forgotten by history across centuries or a traveler moving between four distinct parallel versions of London, these speculative narratives center on the high cost of ambition, the permanence of choice, and the heavy weight of being extraordinary. Victoria Elizabeth Schwab, publishing as V.E. Schwab for adult audiences and Victoria Schwab for children's and young adult fiction, has constructed an expansive body of work encompassing middle-grade, young adult, and adult fantasy novels. Her bibliography is anchored by a refusal to treat genre conventions as rigid constraints, instead using fantastical premises, dark magic, and liminal spaces to interrogate universal human experiences of loneliness, mortality, and identity.
With more than twenty books in print and frequent appearances at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, Schwab's narratives span standalone historical fantasies, dark antihero sagas, gothic fiction, and epic series. Her breakout adult novel Vicious, published in 2013, earned a place on the American Library Association's Reading List, while The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and was nominated for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. From short stories like Warm Up to sprawling universes like the Shades of Magic series, her books invite readers into eerie, highly atmospheric worlds where every extraordinary power comes with a visceral sacrifice.
Born Victoria Elizabeth Schwab on July 7, 1987, to a British mother and an American father from California, she grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and spent her youth moving between California and the American South. This upbringing, combined with a persistent passion for travel and wanderlust, instilled an early fascination with place, cultural intersection, and alterity. Schwab pursued her undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Book Design. She later continued her academic study at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on the study of monstrosity in medieval art. This scholarly research into how human societies historically conceptualize, depict, and demonize the figure of the monster provided the intellectual framework for much of her later speculative fiction.
Schwab entered the publishing world in 2011 with her debut young adult novel The Near Witch, published by Disney Hyperion, followed by The Archived in 2013 and The Unbound in 2014. Her transition into adult speculative fiction occurred in 2013 with the publication of Vicious, a dark fantasy that deconstructed traditional superhero tropes by focusing on two college roommates whose lethal academic rivalry leads to supernatural abilities and moral ruin. Originally, the author maintained a strict division between pen names, reserving Victoria Schwab for middle-grade and young adult releases—such as her Everyday Angel series (2014–2015) and her City of Ghosts middle-grade series—and reserving V.E. Schwab for adult fantasy. Over time, as her international readership expanded and thematic elements crossed age categories, her works consolidated under the V.E. Schwab brand for broader audience recognition.
Beyond her standalone novels and prose series, Schwab's career encompasses graphic novels, short fiction, and television production. She created and executive produced the supernatural teen drama series First Kill, based on her short story originally published in the 2020 anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite. Her work is published across major houses including Tor Books, Scholastic, and Disney Hyperion, and she has been represented by literary agent Holly Root at Waxman Literary and film agent Jon Cassir at CAA. Dividing her time between Edinburgh, Scotland, and Denver, Colorado, Schwab continues to maintain an active writing schedule, frequenting historic European cities and participating in major literary events such as the 2025 National Book Festival, where her novel Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was featured.
Schwab's writing style is noted for its mythic, atmospheric quality, prioritizing psychological depth, atmospheric dread, and character motivation over rigid hard magic systems. A signature thematic concept in her bibliography is the ExtraOrdinary—individuals who survive near-death experiences and return to life endowed with supernatural abilities shaped directly by their final, frantic thoughts before dying. This mechanic allows her stories to explore the subtle line separating heroes from villains, demonstrating how ambition, grief, and resentment can corrupt individuals when granted unearthly power. Rather than relying on escapist fantasy, her magic systems serve as metaphorical tools to examine the permanence of human choice and the emotional burdens borne by those who dare to seek extraordinary lives.
A central thematic pillar across Schwab's adult and young adult fiction is the profound dread of being forgotten and the isolation inherent in immortality or alterity. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, this is embodied in a French woman who bargains with a dark god for eternal life, only to be cursed with complete oblivion where no person can remember her once she leaves their sight. Similar motifs of loneliness and liminality appear throughout her work, whether in the parallel, magic-infused versions of London in A Darker Shade of Magic or the haunted physical boundaries explored in Gallant. Schwab frequently uses prose designed to plant seeds of doubt in the reader's mind, challenging conventional boundaries between reality and dark fantasy while underscoring that every desire carries an inescapable price.
7 books in catalog
A bargain made in the dark of night rarely ends with a soul intact. Whether following a woman forgotten by history across centuries or a traveler moving between four distinct parallel versions of London, these speculative narratives center on the high cost of ambition, the permanence of choice, and the heavy weight of being extraordinary. Victoria Elizabeth Schwab, publishing as V.E. Schwab for adult audiences and Victoria Schwab for children's and young adult fiction, has constructed an expansive body of work encompassing middle-grade, young adult, and adult fantasy novels. Her bibliography is anchored by a refusal to treat genre conventions as rigid constraints, instead using fantastical premises, dark magic, and liminal spaces to interrogate universal human experiences of loneliness, mortality, and identity.
With more than twenty books in print and frequent appearances at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, Schwab's narratives span standalone historical fantasies, dark antihero sagas, gothic fiction, and epic series. Her breakout adult novel Vicious, published in 2013, earned a place on the American Library Association's Reading List, while The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and was nominated for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. From short stories like Warm Up to sprawling universes like the Shades of Magic series, her books invite readers into eerie, highly atmospheric worlds where every extraordinary power comes with a visceral sacrifice.
Born Victoria Elizabeth Schwab on July 7, 1987, to a British mother and an American father from California, she grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and spent her youth moving between California and the American South. This upbringing, combined with a persistent passion for travel and wanderlust, instilled an early fascination with place, cultural intersection, and alterity. Schwab pursued her undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Book Design. She later continued her academic study at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on the study of monstrosity in medieval art. This scholarly research into how human societies historically conceptualize, depict, and demonize the figure of the monster provided the intellectual framework for much of her later speculative fiction.
Schwab entered the publishing world in 2011 with her debut young adult novel The Near Witch, published by Disney Hyperion, followed by The Archived in 2013 and The Unbound in 2014. Her transition into adult speculative fiction occurred in 2013 with the publication of Vicious, a dark fantasy that deconstructed traditional superhero tropes by focusing on two college roommates whose lethal academic rivalry leads to supernatural abilities and moral ruin. Originally, the author maintained a strict division between pen names, reserving Victoria Schwab for middle-grade and young adult releases—such as her Everyday Angel series (2014–2015) and her City of Ghosts middle-grade series—and reserving V.E. Schwab for adult fantasy. Over time, as her international readership expanded and thematic elements crossed age categories, her works consolidated under the V.E. Schwab brand for broader audience recognition.
Beyond her standalone novels and prose series, Schwab's career encompasses graphic novels, short fiction, and television production. She created and executive produced the supernatural teen drama series First Kill, based on her short story originally published in the 2020 anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite. Her work is published across major houses including Tor Books, Scholastic, and Disney Hyperion, and she has been represented by literary agent Holly Root at Waxman Literary and film agent Jon Cassir at CAA. Dividing her time between Edinburgh, Scotland, and Denver, Colorado, Schwab continues to maintain an active writing schedule, frequenting historic European cities and participating in major literary events such as the 2025 National Book Festival, where her novel Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was featured.
Schwab's writing style is noted for its mythic, atmospheric quality, prioritizing psychological depth, atmospheric dread, and character motivation over rigid hard magic systems. A signature thematic concept in her bibliography is the ExtraOrdinary—individuals who survive near-death experiences and return to life endowed with supernatural abilities shaped directly by their final, frantic thoughts before dying. This mechanic allows her stories to explore the subtle line separating heroes from villains, demonstrating how ambition, grief, and resentment can corrupt individuals when granted unearthly power. Rather than relying on escapist fantasy, her magic systems serve as metaphorical tools to examine the permanence of human choice and the emotional burdens borne by those who dare to seek extraordinary lives.
A central thematic pillar across Schwab's adult and young adult fiction is the profound dread of being forgotten and the isolation inherent in immortality or alterity. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, this is embodied in a French woman who bargains with a dark god for eternal life, only to be cursed with complete oblivion where no person can remember her once she leaves their sight. Similar motifs of loneliness and liminality appear throughout her work, whether in the parallel, magic-infused versions of London in A Darker Shade of Magic or the haunted physical boundaries explored in Gallant. Schwab frequently uses prose designed to plant seeds of doubt in the reader's mind, challenging conventional boundaries between reality and dark fantasy while underscoring that every desire carries an inescapable price.
Villains
Villains
