BOOK REVIEW: Heroes & Villains, by Harper Kingsley
Title: Heroes & Villains
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: science fiction, fantasy, superhero, mm romance
Summary: Vereint wants to be a superhero and use his amazing abilities for good. Instead, he’s relegated to a life of mediocrity spiced with outright mockery on the part of the heroes he’d so long admired. So he faces the truth of himself and the life he lives… and becomes the supervillain Darkstar.
My rating: I personally think it’s super awesome, but I don’t rate my own stuff (yet. I might get desperate, so I’m not going to let go of all available options.)
Review: Starts off with Vereint Georges trying his best to balance life as the wannabe superhero Starburst (a name that leads to much mockery) and an office worker. There are some clashes and he ends up alienating most of his co-workers, which makes his role as a superhero more important. Except Blue Ice, a hero he’s always admired, treats him like crap, which leaves him questioning the life he’s chosen.
With very little prompting, he leaves morals behind and turns to a life of crime as the supervillain Darkstar. With his awesome powers he could have been a figure of great terror, but instead he keeps to the smaller crimes of robbery and hostage taking. Still, his looks and powers lead him to having a reputation as the world’s premier supervillain.
And his arch-enemy? Well, it ends up being Blue Ice, who can’t help feeling a bit fascinated.
A slow building romance works in the background, eventually taking over the story and changing both of their lives forever. But in between… there’s super battles, the terrorist organization called the Darksters that see Darkstar as their role-model, and a man bent on avenging his sister by killing as many superheroes as he can manage.
There’s also like robot squid things and minions and inadvertent bank robberies and stuff. Oh yeah, and romance happens.
In all, this story is basically PG-13 and probably would have held to that rating if I didn’t have such a foul mouth. I don’t know how many times I used the f-word and various other vulgarities, but it was enough that the rating was unfortunately bumped to a soft-R.
