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63 pages 2 hours read

Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Apprentice to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #2)

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Background

Series Context: Assistant to the Villain

Apprentice to the Villain is the second book in the Assistant to the Villain series by Hannah Maehrer. The series originated from Maehrer’s popular TikTok skits, where she portrays a bubbly, cheerful assistant interacting with her villainous boss. The skits play on the stereotypes and tropes of the fantasy genre, which often features starkly evil antagonists.

The first book of the series follows Evie Sage, a young woman who struggles to support her family after her brother’s death and her mother’s abandonment. She takes care of her father, Griffin, who suffers from the incurable Mystic Illness, and her 10-year-old sister, Lyssa. While searching for work, Evie encounters Trystan, the kingdom’s Villain, in a desperate situation. He hires Evie as his assistant, and she quickly excels in the role, growing to love her new job. Trystan’s nemesis is King Benedict, a supposedly benevolent leader who imprisoned Trystan upon deeming his magic too dangerous. After escaping, Trystan embraced his role as The Villain, convinced that his fate was predetermined.

Assistant to the Villain takes an intimate approach, focusing on Evie’s slowly emerging romantic interest in Trystan, Trystan’s evolution as The Villain, and the external forces that shape interpersonal relationships and character development. Apprentice to the Villain expands the world by introducing the prophetic Rennedawn’s Story and the threat of the kingdom’s fading magic, which creates urgency, pushing Evie to confront larger forces of power.

Both novels also examine familial bonds. Assistant to the Villain portrays Griffin as a beleaguered father figure and Nura as the villainous mother who killed her son and abandoned her family. However, Griffin is revealed to be manipulative and cruel, exploiting his daughter for his own gain. Nura, on the other hand, whose absence and supposed betrayal cast her in a negative light, becomes more complex as her true motives come to light in Apprentice to the Villain. This shift in the portrayal of both parents underscores the theme of family as a source of love and betrayal, adding layers to the characters and their relationships.

Genre Context: Romantasy, Villains, and BookTok

Hannah Maehrer’s journey as an author is deeply intertwined with her experiences on BookTok, the popular TikTok community focused on books and readers. Maehrer’s rise to fame began when she created a series of TikTok skits featuring a bubbly assistant and her villainous boss. These skits, known for their playful tone and comedic interactions, quickly gained popularity and encouraged Maehrer to expand the story, leading to the publication of her debut novel, Assistant to the Villain.

Maehrer demonstrates BookTok’s influence through her interactive approach to writing. Fans of her skits help shape the tone and content of her novels, providing feedback that guides her storytelling. This engagement, a hallmark of social media platforms like TikTok, allows Maehrer to craft stories that resonate with her audience’s desires and preferences.

Maehrer’s work blends humor, romance, fantasy, and relatable characters, tapping into the growing popularity of the romantasy genre, which combines fantasy and romance elements. Her novels foreground the quirky, charming dynamic between Evie Sage and her boss, Trystan, The Villain, while engaging in enough worldbuilding to satisfy the expectations of fantasy.

Maehrer’s novels also delve into the fantasy villain subgenre, which explores the motivations of traditionally evil characters. Key dramatic works in this genre include Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995) and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999), and Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015). Other authors, like John Scalzi in Starter Villain (2023), use humor to explore good and evil but eschew romance entirely. Maehrer uses both approaches, balancing lightheartedness with deeper themes. Maehrer’s success highlights the rise of community-driven storytelling and the impact of digital platforms like BookTok in shaping new literary trends.

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Related Titles

By Hannah Nicole Maehrer