Parents' Guide to A Stage Set for Villains

This thrilling, twisty trip to a magically appearing Playhouse with godlike, gilded, and giddily villainous Players is dark academia for the theater crowd. Instead of chapters, the book is broken into acts and scenes, and instead of casting a gorgeous female hero in the lead, we get Riven, a perpetually angry, always scheming 18-year-old who is shunned by polite society and is so emaciated that she appears months away from death. She's drawn to the theater and repelled by it; she's drawn to Jude, the handsome Lead Player; and she also thinks he's evil incarnate. Which is fine, because she's supposed to kill him onstage anyway—until their feelings are so complicated that it's definitely not fine anymore.

A Stage Set for Villains could have easily been a duology, and then some of the great themes debut author Shannon J. Spann explores could have had more room to breathe. The stage director's manipulation of the north is masterful, but over too quickly. "Rewriting history is easy," he says, "you just need enough people to believe it." The breakdown of Riven's prejudices against the Players also takes a rather hasty turn from escape back to the safety of the Playhouse. And more time exploring the magic called Craft and all its applications would have been welcome, just because it's pretty impressively devious magic. Here's hoping there's more great magic to come from this promising new author.