Surprisingly, I was not the originator of this Rec League, even though it is definitely my jam! Thanks to Meryl for sending this one in:
I’m looking for some recommendations for books in which the hero is the villain in a previous book in a series (not a jerk, but really a redeemed villain). I remember coming across one or two in my reading but I can’t remember what either of them are.
Amanda: Elyse, Would Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) work for this one?
Elyse: Yup!
Amanda: I think Moonglow by Kristen Callihan is SLIGHTLY there, though the hero isn’t fully a villain. In the first book, he tried to steal the heroine away from the hero. It’s a point of contention in the second book as his heroine is that woman’s sister.
Sarah: Devil in Winter ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) – Sebastian, the hero, is the villain in the first book, I believe. I think it’s the first, and into the second somewhat.
There’s also an older historical that is nagging at my brain.
Oh – Amanda, would Lothaire ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Scribd ) qualify?
Amanda: Hm…I think so. I also think some of the later Immortals After Dark books would work too because Cole is focusing on the “villains” now.
Sarah: And The Duke’s Wager by Edith Layton ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which is a lovely bait-and-switch romance. That one is fun.
Which villains-turned-heroes would you recommend? Tell us in the comments!
Iron and Magic by Ilona Andrews!!! It’s part of the Kate Daniels universe but is readable on its own. It’s book 1 of a trilogy that’s not finished yet though.
Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase. He was the villain in the Lion’s Daughter.
The Dedicated Villain by Patricia Veryan. It’s the last book in the Golden Chronicles and Roland Mathieson is a very entertaining villain throughout the series – or so it seems…
Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair by Stephanie Laurens.
One Silent Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Stryker (the hero) is a major villain in previous books and Zeph (the heroine) works for another villain. Their redemption is slow but genuine
Kenyon does this in a couple of books but I don’t feel comfortable recommending Styxx or Born of Legend to others cause they need content warnings a mile long
I’m in the process of reading Thea Harrison’s Spellbinder and I think this qualifies for the redeemed villain trope, although Morgan is compelled to act villainously by a geas. I’m betting that he’s still going to have to cope with all the good guys hating his guts when the book is done.
I actually love this trope; most of the titles mentioned so far are on my desert island packing list. It’s a favorite right up there with road trips. Come to think of it, have you guys ever done a Rec League for road trips?
There is Valentine Napier, a villain from Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series who gets his “redemption” in “The Duke of Sin”. I never really warmed up to him though.
In Mary Balogh’s books, Edmund was the villain in The Trysting Place and the hero in The Notorious Rake.
@PamG: We have a Road Trip trope tag in our books database! We also have a Rec League on travel romances.
Well, a classic (and marvelous!) example would be Georgette Heyer’s The Black Moth and These Old Shades. She changed the names from the first book to the second, but from the back story in These Old Shades, these are clearly the same characters. And the Duke of Avon’s redemption is one of my favorites ever. The Black Moth was her first book, so there’s that. But These Old Shades is one of my go-tos to give to people who pooh-pooh romance–and usually they finish it and then go buy their own copy!
Duke of Dark Desires by Miranda Neville? Julian was wreacking havoc in the previous book Lady Windermere’s Lover – I think this would probably count too.
Rhys in Sarah J. Maas’s Court books. He was straight up opportunist and consort of the big bad in book one, to the point of being pretty obviously evil and complicit to evil (torturing the innocent for example). It’s a total testament to Maas’s skill that he is totally redeemed and self-aware and absolutely delicious in the second book.
” And The Duke’s Wager by Edith Layton, which is a lovely bait-and-switch romance. That one is fun.”
Even more fun, the follow-up – THE DISDAINFUL MARQUIS – gives the “villain” of TDW a lovely redemption of his own. (confession: I read TDM first, and it’s still one of my favourites)
I adore this trope, so I’m bookmarking this thread.
In my Bone Cold-Alive Series about a rock band, the twin brother of the hero of the first book (T’s Trial), tries his best to foul up things. In the sequel, C’s Comeuppance, he, of course, is redeemed, although it takes a while. Over the course of the series, band manager Fletcher’s interference cast him as a villain until he is finally redeemed in book six.
Sarah MacLean’s Day of the Duchess tries to redeem the guy who was the villain in The Rogue Not Taken. He grovels a lot (this book features an underwater grovel grotto and an unnecessary baby-filled epilogue), but I think he’s still an asshat and Sera was better off without him.
I know the requestor asked for heroes/villains, but I’m going to throw in a villainess turned heroine if anyone else likes those. Harlequin’s Weddings by DeWilde series kicked off with a longtime couple splitting up due to the husband’s affair with a younger woman who actively pursued him despite knowing he was married. That woman, who was also a clever security expert, was given her own story in the sixth book in the series, To Love a Thief. It’s on the Open Library.
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16044198W/To_love_a_thief
Also, in BJ Daniels’s Whitehorse Montana series, Arlene Evans was introduced as a completely awful character. Yet in the sixth book, Second Chance Cowboy, Daniels gave her her own story and redeemed her as a heroine. Also noteworthy for having an older hero and heroine. It’s on the Open Library.
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15715725W/Second_Chance_Cowboy
I second Iron and Magic, The Duke of Dark Desires and These Old Shades mentioned above. I did not expect Ilona Andrews to pull off Hugh’s redemption in Iron and Magic. I only read it because I had nothing better to do andthey’re auto-buy. Holy heck was I proven wrong. I also second Kresley Cole’s IAD series.
My recommendations:
DANCE by Judy Cuevas (evil cock-blocking brother)
THE QUEEN/KING OF ATTOLIA by Megan Whale Turner (villainous redeemed; rarer than men)
THE YOUNG BLOOD by Erin Satie (villainous rake)
SHADOWHEART by Laura Kinsale (there are consent issues in this book (it’s a medieval BDSM *shrugs*), but it also has the best redemption scene I’ve ever read, with the hero bawling his eyes out in a church about how much he doesn’t want to go to hell)
REAL MEN WILL by Victoria Dahl (cockblocking brother part 2)
I’m back because I remembered some more:
GOOD FOR YOU by Tammara Webber (my favourite celebrity romance! I love it with a passion. The redemption is extremely believable.)
IN HER DEFENSE by Julianna Keyes (another villainous redeemed, woohoo!)
INTO THE SHADOWS by Carolyn Crane (I don’t remember if the hero was the outright villain in the previous book or just one of the bad guys)
This trope is my jam as you can clearly see.
Now on to villains redeemed in anime… Just kidding! I’ll be taking my leave now.
Harry Potter spoiler alert!
Snape?!
How To School Your Scoundrel by Juliana Grey. When we meet Philip in a previous book, he is every villiainous thing you’d expect from a heroine’s soon-to-be-exhusband. Then he gets his own book, and OMG is he redeemed. You actually wonder why you liked the heroine in the other book.
@Sarah, Lothaire would absolutely fit the trope.
in Sarah Waldock’s Brandon Scandals series, the hero of the second book (“The Reprobrate’s Redemption”) was the villian in the first book (“The Hasty Proposal”).
Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold
I haven’t read either one and I’ve heard mixed things about how well the redemption works, but in Grace Burrowes’ THE TRAITOR the villain from the previous novel, THE CAPTIVE, is redeemed.
Grace Burrowes usually writes what I consider cozy, feel-good historical romances, but the villainous acts of this redeemed villain include torture, so I really don’t know how well this works.
How do I forget these things? Anne Stuert, the queen of villiainous heroes. They don’t all appear as characters in series, but it is readily apparent that they are not good men.
One of my favorites, for reasons I cannot explain, is Ritual Sins. He’s the leader of a cult, not a true-believer like a Jim Jones, but a taking-them-for-all-they’ve-got conman who has taken millions from the heroine’s mother.
@26 – NOBODY can explain their love for Anne Stuart. Her stories absolutely should not work for me, but they always do.
Definitely thirding Ilona Andrews’s IRON AND MAGIC.
For those of you for whom Kristen Ashley works, there’s a villain-turned-hero in SEBRING (Nick is the jack*ss/villain in at least KNIGHT, and goes on a slow redemption arc that culminates in SEBRING).
She also has a villain-turned-HEROINE in MIDNIGHT SOUL (book 5 in the FANTASYLAND series)—Franka is the trouble-making, mostly villain in at least 2-3 of the previous ones, starts a redemption arc in maybe book 4, and then is given her own book in the close-out of the series.
And not to fangirl on Nalini Singh too badly, but most of her P/C and Trinity series rely on the complexities of people changing over time; the Arrows start as the “bogeymen” of the Psy, yet are shown later to be heroes/heroines in their own books. Ditto Kaleb Krychek.
It’s also something that J.R. Ward does well in BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD books. Xcor is a villain for a long time before he gets his own book (and it’s not my favorite of the series (it’s THE CHOSEN), but he has a nice arc).
Reggie Davenport and Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent are my favorite redeemed villains. Reggie is the hero in the Rake and the villain in The Diabolical Baron. Early MJP and two great romances.
Sebastian needs no introduction I presume.
I am an obsessed Kate Daniels fan and I could not accept Hugh as a hero…..he is just too evil to my beloved and her crew.
The spinoff Jackdaw from K.J. Charles’ A Charm of Magpies trilogy definitely fall under this. Jonah is not the evillest villain (which is good because the ultimate villains in those stories are horrid) but you definitely get a very different view of him in Jackdaw.
The “villainess” in Julianna Keyes’s TIME SERVED becomes the heroine of the next book in the series, IN HER DEFENSE. She’s a lawyer who does some underhanded things in TIME SERVED, but we get to see her in a different light in IN HER DEFENSE. However, I will say you have to read both books, in order, to get her full redemption arc. On the other hand, I guess it’s true of many of the books on this list: you have to read the book(s) where the character appears as a villain in order to appreciate the way they become “heroic.”
Was just about to mention Jackdaw. Disagreeing with Robot’s comment “Jonah is not the evillest villain” slightly in that I thought what he did in the book that introduced him was unforgivable … and when I heard that Charles was going to write him as the hero of a book I thought, “she’ll never pull that off surely,” but she did! without excusing Jonah or finding lenient explanations for him, but instead writing him changing pretty convincingly.
BABY, COME HOME by M. O’Keefe. The hero in that book is the villain in the previous book, BAD NEIGHBOR. He actually committed the crime that the heroine believes she witnessed, but you finally understand why, and O’Keefe absolutely redeems him. Not easy to make believable, but she’s a fabulous writer.
Villianess: Catriona from The Lass Wore Black. She’s definitely the villain in A Scandalous Scot but gets the best and most believable redemption story.
RE: Valentine Napier from Duke of Sin is very hard to take at points in the series, but damn does he love his sister (not in a GoT way).
I’m not sure he is a total villain, but Leopold Dautry, the notorious Duke of Villiers in Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses series redeems himself in a Duke of Her Own . . . I always thought he was a bit like Justin, Duke of Avon in These Old Shades. Talking of which, Justin’s son gets off to a bit of a nasty start in the sequel, Devil’s Cub, but redeems himself by the end.
The hero of Meredith Duran’s Fool Me Twice is the bad guy of That Scandalous Summer
Lord Vaughn in Lauren Willig’s The Seduction of the Crimson Rose
The Henchmen of Zenda
Another K J Charles, this is quasi-fanfic, because The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau have been out long enough to be public domain.
It’s not (quite) a romance, except when it is. A twist on both novels where not only Michael but Rassendyll are fairly dislikeable, the women are intelligent and better-behaved, and a new character, Jasper Detchard, is brought in as a mercenary for Duke Michael (and is secretly trying to protect Michael’s mistress). Then Jasper Detchard falls madly in love with Rupert of Hentzau.
Both pretend to fall to their doom and get away.
Their relationship might be considered aro, because they’re not together all the time and it’s not necessarily demonstrative. I think it’s very romantic–because without imposed ties they always come home to each other eventually.
Katee Robertls O’Malley series follows the family of modern day mobsters. The final book in the series, The Bastard’s Bargain shows the villain in the previous books as more grey than a true black heart.