Vengeful by V.E. Schwab, published in 2018, is the second installment in the Villains series, following the critically acclaimed Vicious. Set in the fictional city of Merit, the novel continues exploring a world where near-death experiences unlock supernatural abilities, producing individuals known as EOs (ExtraOrdinaries). With power comes obsession, betrayal, and vengeance, and Schwab weaves a darkly ambitious story of broken loyalties, monstrous ambition, and the high price of survival. The narrative picks up after the events of Vicious, intertwining past and present timelines as familiar faces clash with dangerous new adversaries in a power struggle that redefines what it means to be a villain.

Plot Summary

The night Marcella Riggins died, she set the table with candlelight and red wine, not knowing betrayal would join them for dinner. Her husband, Marcus – loyal only to his power and appetite – came home with lipstick on his sleeve and condescension in his voice. The confrontation escalated, her fury answering the insult with a steak knife and a vow to unmake him. He responded with violence and fire. Her body burned beneath iron and silk, but Marcella’s will burned hotter. Death took her, but it didn’t hold.

When she woke in a hospital bed, her skin still blistered and scorched, she was no longer just a woman. She was more. Everything she touched began to disintegrate, crumble into dust – like the illusion of her marriage, like the world she once adorned. Marcella Riggins had been ornamental. Now, she would be dangerous.

While Marcella carved a path of vengeance through the ranks of powerful men, Victor Vale was dying over and over again. Ever since his resurrection, the current in his blood misfired. Pain sharpened into seizures. Death, once a calculated detour, now stalked him in loops. Sydney, the girl who brought him back, couldn’t fix what was unraveling inside him. He sought doctors, mechanics, even criminals – anyone who might rebuild a man stitched together by death and electricity. None succeeded. His body was a countdown.

In the shadows of Merit, Marcella built her empire. She executed crime bosses with a touch, gathered allies with surgical charm. Among them was June – a shapeshifter cloaked in secrets, watching Marcella with careful calculation and keeping a silent, distant eye on Sydney. June shifted skins like cards, her real face buried deep. Her loyalty lay not with Marcella’s vision, but with something older, something tied to a girl and a promise.

Marcella wanted more than revenge. She wanted a legacy. EOs – ExtraOrdinaries – people twisted by death and reborn with power, were the future. She sought them, gathered them, tempted them. Her ambition ran on momentum, unchecked and brilliant. But power doesn’t go unnoticed. EON, a secretive government agency hunting EOs, tightened its grip around the city. Their prized asset: Eli Ever.

Once a friend to Victor, now a prisoner, Eli lived in white rooms beneath cold lights, stripped of his powers inch by inch by men with scalpels. Regeneration used to make him immortal. Now, he was dissected daily, an experiment in endurance. But even caged, Eli remained dangerous. His faith twisted into certainty – that he had been chosen, that EOs were abominations to be purged. Beneath the torment, he plotted. Even broken, he had plans.

Victor returned to Merit not to fight Marcella, but to fix himself. He needed an EO who could heal, someone who could quiet the current in his bones. Every lead ended in failure or a corpse. Time grew thinner. Sydney, Mitch, and Dominic – his makeshift family – followed, worried but loyal. Sydney clung to her dog, Dol, and her stubborn hope that Victor could be saved. She watched him deteriorate, her guilt as sharp as her gift.

Paths began to cross. Marcella’s presence surged like wildfire, her body count climbing. EON closed in. Victor saw the threat she posed and the opportunity she created – a distraction big enough to slip past the agency’s eyes. But Marcella wasn’t careless. She wanted Victor on her side. He declined. Respectful, even amused, she let him go. For now.

In the city’s underbelly, Victor tracked an EO who could manipulate biology – a man who might cure him. He found only another disappointment, and with each failed attempt, the seizures grew. He’d die. Then rise. Each time, slower. Longer. He knew the math. Eventually, he wouldn’t come back.

June, behind her disguises, watched Sydney from afar. She killed to protect her. Killed for something deeper than friendship. She wore other bodies to do it, never revealing her true face, even as she danced through Marcella’s world. Her loyalty split, she fed information to keep Sydney safe, even as Marcella marched toward war.

Eli, deep in EON’s underground facility, waited. He studied the patterns, the guards, the pain. When an opportunity cracked open, he took it. Killed his way out, retrieved his coat and knife. The man who stepped into the world wasn’t just scarred – he was focused, his rage refined into religion.

Marcella stood at the peak of her power, surrounded by men who had once dismissed her. Now they feared her. But empires built on fear attract challengers. Victor made his move. He didn’t want her throne. He wanted a cure, and she was in the way. Their encounter sparked like flint – violent, swift, unresolved. Marcella survived. Barely.

The city tensed. Everyone hunted someone. EON hunted EOs. Marcella hunted dominance. Victor hunted time. Eli hunted sin.

Their collisions turned Merit into a battlefield. Marcella, betrayed by allies, faced Victor once more. June intervened, her motives shadowed by desperation. Marcella touched her. For the first time, June’s many lives began to unravel. Power met power, and it was June who survived.

Victor collapsed. Too many deaths. Too little time. Sydney cried for help, but there was no one left to fix him. She begged. She pleaded. Then she made her choice. Again, she raised the dead.

Victor opened his eyes.

But something was different.

In the quiet aftermath, Marcella’s legacy burned with her ambition. Eli, wounded but alive, disappeared into the dark. June fled, her identity fractured, her mission unresolved. EON reeled from its failures, already drawing new lines on maps of control. Sydney stayed at Victor’s side, watching the flicker in his gaze, the sharpness that didn’t belong. Death had taken something. Or left something behind.

Power was never about justice. It was about survival. And none of them were done yet.

Main Characters

• Victor Vale – A brooding and brilliant antihero brought back from the dead, Victor is plagued by a growing instability in his powers. He is calculating, cold, and driven by control, especially as he faces the terrifying deterioration of his body after resurrection. His internal battle mirrors his external one – staying ahead of enemies while staying alive.

• Marcella Riggins – Intelligent, ruthless, and newly reborn as an EO after a violent betrayal by her husband, Marcella is determined to build an empire from the ashes of her former life. Her power of disintegration mirrors her ambition to dismantle the corrupt patriarchy that wronged her, making her both a formidable antagonist and a symbol of female rage and reclamation.

• Sydney Clarke – A young EO with the power to resurrect the dead, Sydney is still haunted by the memory of her sister Serena and the moral ambiguity of her gift. Her relationship with Victor is one of quiet loyalty and unspoken dependence, as she wrestles with questions of mortality, power, and belonging.

• June – A mysterious shapeshifter with a hidden agenda, June becomes entangled in Marcella’s rise to power. Her abilities make her elusive and powerful, and her motivations are closely tied to Sydney, whom she seems to be protecting from afar. Her past remains obscure, making her both enigmatic and unpredictable.

• Eli Ever – Victor’s archenemy and former friend, Eli is imprisoned for his crimes, subjected to medical experimentation that strips away his regenerative invulnerability layer by layer. His chapters reveal a man clinging to twisted faith and self-righteous logic, unraveling as both a victim and a monster.

Theme

• Power and Corruption: Schwab continues her exploration of how power shapes identity and corrupts morality. Every EO in the story is changed by their abilities, not just physically but philosophically. Power becomes a lens through which characters judge their worth and justify their actions.

• Vengeance and Justice: True to its title, Vengeful revolves around characters seeking vengeance – Marcella against her husband and the men who dismissed her, Victor against his own mortality, and Eli against the world that condemned him. Vengeance is shown not just as reactionary, but as transformative, carving new paths for each character.

• Mortality and Resurrection: Death and rebirth are literal and thematic forces in the novel. Characters like Victor and Marcella rise from the dead altered, bearing both power and consequence. Sydney’s resurrection ability becomes a moral anchor, prompting questions about the permanence of death and the soul’s place in power.

• Feminine Power and Reclamation: Through Marcella and June especially, Schwab interrogates the suppression and resurgence of female power. Marcella’s journey from victim to queenpin is as much a commentary on systemic misogyny as it is a personal vendetta.

Writing Style and Tone

V.E. Schwab’s writing in Vengeful is razor-sharp, cinematic, and emotionally charged. She utilizes a nonlinear structure, leaping through time and perspectives to build suspense and flesh out characters in parallel arcs. The chapters are short, punchy, and often end on cliffhangers, propelling the narrative with relentless momentum. Her prose balances lyricism with precision, often juxtaposing poetic description with brutal action. It’s a style that mirrors the story’s dichotomy – beauty cloaking violence, elegance framing horror.

The tone of the novel is dark, complex, and morally ambiguous. Schwab doesn’t draw clean lines between good and evil; rather, she immerses readers in a world where everyone is villainous in some way. Emotional depth is layered into the brutality, making the tone both chilling and poignant. Characters reflect on trauma, guilt, and identity, creating an atmosphere heavy with tension, yet laced with introspection and occasional wry humor.