{"id":123,"date":"2011-10-10T23:24:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T06:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harperkingsley.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/10\/book-review-heroes-villains-by-harper-kingsley\/"},"modified":"2023-10-17T23:38:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T06:38:41","slug":"book-review-heroes-villains-by-harper-kingsley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/book-review-heroes-villains-by-harper-kingsley\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REVIEW: Heroes &#038; Villains, by Harper Kingsley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Title: Heroes &amp; Villains<br \/> Author: Harper Kingsley<br \/> Genre: science fiction, fantasy, superhero, mm romance<br \/> Summary: Vereint wants to be a superhero and use his amazing abilities for good. Instead, he&#8217;s relegated to a life of mediocrity spiced with outright mockery on the part of the heroes he&#8217;d so long admired. So he faces the truth of himself and the life he lives&#8230; and becomes the supervillain Darkstar.<\/p>\n<p> My rating: I personally think it&#8217;s super awesome, but I don&#8217;t rate my own stuff (yet. I might get desperate, so I&#8217;m not going to let go of all available options.)<\/p>\n<p> Review: Starts off with Vereint Georges trying his best to balance life as&nbsp;the wannabe&nbsp;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&#8217;s always admired, treats him like crap, which leaves him questioning the life he&#8217;s chosen.<\/p>\n<p> 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&#8217;s premier supervillain.<\/p>\n<p> And his arch-enemy? Well, it ends up being Blue Ice, who can&#8217;t help feeling a bit fascinated.<\/p>\n<p> A slow building romance works in the background, eventually taking over the story and changing both of their lives forever. But in between&#8230; there&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p> There&#8217;s also like robot squid things and minions and inadvertent bank robberies and stuff. Oh yeah, and romance happens.<\/p>\n<p> In all, this story is basically PG-13 and probably would have held to that rating if I didn&#8217;t have such a foul mouth. I don&#8217;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&nbsp;a soft-R.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: Heroes &amp; 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&#8217;s relegated to a life of mediocrity spiced with outright mockery on the part of the heroes he&#8217;d so long admired. So he faces the truth&hellip;<\/p>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/book-review-heroes-villains-by-harper-kingsley\/\" title=\"BOOK REVIEW: Heroes &#038; Villains, by Harper Kingsley\" class=\"entry-more-link\"><span>Read More<\/span> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">BOOK REVIEW: Heroes &#038; Villains, by Harper Kingsley<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"Layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44],"tags":[373,495,529,631],"class_list":["entry","author-harperkingsley0-0","post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-novels","tag-heroes-villains","tag-mm-romance","tag-novel","tag-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pPoL-1Z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/heroes-villains\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":0},"title":"Heroes &#038; Villains","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"June 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"As the superhero Starburst, Vereint received only derision and mockery. All his heroic endeavors resulted in nothing but humiliation. No matter how hard he tried, the world could only see him as a joke. Eventually he was pushed into the life of a supervillain. He changed his name to Darkstar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Novels&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novels","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/novels\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4391,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/heroes-villains-dinner-for-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":1},"title":"Heroes &#038; Villains: &#8220;Dinner For Two&#8221; by Harper Kingsley","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"April 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Heroes & Villains: Dinner For Two\" by Harper Kingsley is an mm superhero romance short story. Vereint and Warrick make and enjoy a steak dinner and share a romantic evening.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Short Stories&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Short Stories","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/short-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2634,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/heroes-villains-psychotic-harper-kingsley-superhero\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":2},"title":"Heroes &#038; Villains: Psychotic, by Harper Kingsley [superhero]","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"August 25, 2013","format":"aside","excerpt":"Title: Psychotic Author: Harper Kingsley World: Heroes & Villains Genre: mm superhero Word count: 8750 A\/N: This story is set during part three of Allies & Enemies. It began as a cut scene and was expanded. A\/N 2: Includes excerpts of upcoming stories. First two chapters of Allies & Enemies,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Self-Publishing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Self-Publishing","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/self-publishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Psychotic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Heroes_and_Villains-Pyschotic-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2695,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/heroes-villains-parashift-birthday-wish\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":3},"title":"Heroes &#038; Villains, ParaShift, birthday wish","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"September 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I have largely been without Internet for most of this month. I'm back now, but it will be sporadic at best and I apologize. I hope that I will be able to make posts through my kindle and email, but it's been giving me a hard time lately and some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;What's up buttercup?&quot;","block_context":{"text":"What's up buttercup?","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/whats-up-buttercup\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Joyfully Jay","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/joyfullyjay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/sidebar_badge1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3562,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/ends-dec-31-lt3-sale-25-off-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":4},"title":"Ends Dec 31. Lt3 sale. 25% off books","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"December 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There's been a sale happening at Less Than Three Press. 25% off books. If you're looking to pick up a copy of \"Heroes & Villains,\" \"Allies & Enemies,\" or \"Rocking Hard: Volume 1\" to add to your Harper Kingsley collection, now's a good time to hit that. Heroes & Villains\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Around the Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Around the Internet","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/around-the-internet\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Heroes & Villains","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/hv-lt3-300x261.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3196,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/allies-enemies-by-harper-kingsley-is-live-superhero-mm-novel\/","url_meta":{"origin":123,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;Allies &#038; Enemies,&#8221; by Harper Kingsley is live! [superhero, mm, novel]","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"August 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Title: Allies & Enemies Author: Harper Kingsley Series: Heroes & Villains (Book Two) Cover art: Aisha Akeju Publisher: Less Than Three Press Genre: mm, superhero, urban fantasy, sci-fi Word count: 129,000 Summary: In the wake of the death of the Fabulous Kims, Vereint cannot forget Melissa, the little girl they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;LT3&quot;","block_context":{"text":"LT3","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/publishers\/lt3-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Allies & Enemies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/AE-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6572,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/6572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}