#Review - City of Villains by Estelle Laure #YA #Fantasy #Fairy Tales

Series: City of Villains # 1
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Release Date: January 26, 2021
Publisher:  Disney-Hyperion
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Fairy Tales & Folklore

Disney’s Villains meet Gotham in this gritty fairy tale-inspired crime series.

Mary Elizabeth Heart is a high school senior by day, but by night she’s an intern at the Monarch City police department. She watches with envy from behind a desk as detectives come and go, trying to contain the city’s growing crime rate. For years, tension has simmered between the city’s wealthy elite, and their plans to gentrify the decaying neighborhood called the Scar—once upon a time the epicenter of all things magic.

When the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful businessmen goes missing, Mary Elizabeth is thrilled when the Chief actually puts her on the case. But what begins as one missing person’s report soon multiplies, leading her down the rabbit hole of a city in turmoil. There she finds a girl with horns, a boyfriend with secrets, and what seems to be a sea monster lurking in a poison lake. As the mystery circles closer to home, Mary finds herself caught in the fight between those who once had magic, and those who will do anything to bring it back.

This dark and edgy YA series explores the reimagined origins of Maleficent, Ursula, Captain Hook, and other infamous Disney Villains like you’ve never seen before.

City of Villains is the first installment in author Estelle Laure's City of Villains trilogy. I like to think of this book as a villains re-imaging story. The story takes place 20 years After the Fall when magic disappeared. It's also the 2 year anniversary of the night the Ward, the crown jewel of the Scar, came crashing down killing thousands Legacies who worked at the tower in the center of their corner of the city. Now, the only thing remaining is a lake made of black water that is highly toxic where the building used to be. 17-year old Mary Elizabeth lives in an area called the Scar. The Scar is an area where magic once thrived, but now supposedly no longer exists. 

Having lost her family and now living with her Aunt Gia, Mary's main goal is to one day become a police officer under the woman who allegedly found her families killer. In addition to her schooling, Mary interns for the Monarch City Police Department where she is pretty much a paperwork pusher. Things change when a classmate, Mally Saint, disappears without her trusty side kick Hellion. Police Chief Ito actually assigns her to the case along with a Isabella (Bella), a young police officer tired of being ignored and disrespected by her male partner. 

Mary sees this as her chance to seal a position within the department after she finishes school. Mary and Bella begin their investigation, but instead of gaining any clarity, the mystery only thickens. After Mary's best friend, Ursula Atlantica, (yes, that Ursula from the Little Mermaid), disappears as well, Mary knows something more sinister is happening than just kids running away from the Scar, but who will believe her? Her boyfriend James is acting strangely. 

The same James who knows when someone is betraying him, or when someone is lying, or when someone is a lost cause. But James has a few secrets of his own which is bottling Mary up inside knowing that he may hold the answers she needs to help her friends. I think it's fair to call this a villains origin story featuring Maleficent, Ursula and Captain Hook. But there are others mentioned as well: Belle, Flora, Fauna, Merrywether (three protagonists in Walt Disney's 1959 film Sleeping Beauty), Gaston (the main antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated feature film, Beauty and the Beast), and The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.

This book is set in a Gotham-style setting where there are those descended from magical families called Legacies, and those that aren't called Narrows. As the Narrows multiply in Scar, the heated rivalry between these two groups threatens to boil over into the streets. Mary belongs to the Legacy group. The disappearance of magic is a driving force of many of the events in the book, and a large source of conflict between different groups in the novel (i.e. Magicalists vs. Naturalists). There's a third group known as Amagicalists who are not fully against magic where we find Mary's Aunt Gia and her friends. 

City of Villains ended up being a better book than I thought. There is a stunning cliffhanger ending that will leave readers curious about what's next. I disagree with others that this is aimed at Middle Grade or Young Adults. I do think Young Adult and some adults will enjoy the darkness of this story as well as the appeal of discovering new origins of some of their favorite Disney villains. Mary Elizabeth is an interesting character to follow but I would have liked to learn more about her family and what makes her a Legacy.

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