There exists in every great story a moment when the heart commits an act of magnificent treason — when it turns, quite without permission, toward precisely the wrong person. We are here today because we adore that moment. We live for it, frankly.
If you have come searching for romantasy books where the villain is the love interest, where wicked souls and tender hearts collide in the most delicious of messes, then you have arrived at the right door. We have gathered here an exquisite mix of the finest villain romances the genre has to offer — from beloved classics to the most anticipated releases of 2025 and 2026.
Settle in. The villains are waiting.
1. Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
What happens when a sunshine-bright young woman takes a clerical position in the lair of the realm’s most feared sorcerer? Something rather wonderful, as it turns out.
Evie Sage needs a job desperately, and The Villain — capital T, capital V — needs an assistant who won’t faint at the sight of severed heads. Their workplace banter crackles with wit, and beneath The Villain’s brooding menace beats a heart that Evie slowly, irresistibly coaxes into the light.
Often described as “The Office meets Once Upon a Time,” this is the book that proves even evil empires need decent administrative support. The series continues with Apprentice to the Villain and Accomplice to the Villain, each deepening the slow-burn romance beautifully.
2. The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Jude Duarte was stolen into the High Court of Faerie as a small thing, and grew up sharp-edged and ferociously determined among beings who despise her mortality. Prince Cardan is the cruelest of them all — wicked, beautiful, and utterly insufferable.
Their dynamic is not a romance at first; it is a war. But what a glorious war it is, full of political scheming, knife-sharp dialogue, and a tension so thick you could cut it with a faerie blade. Holly Black builds a world where power is the only currency, and watching Jude seize it is breathtaking. The romance that eventually blooms across this trilogy is all the more intoxicating for having been forged in hostility.
3. The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent
In a kingdom of vampires, Oraya is the only human — adopted daughter of the ruthless Vampire King and determined to survive a deadly tournament. Then there is Raihn: enemy, rival, and a killer with far too many secrets. Their enemies-to-allies-to-something-far-more-dangerous arc unfolds with exquisite patience, all banter and stolen glances amid the bloodshed.
Raihn is the kind of love interest who feels genuinely perilous — powerful, morally complex, and tender only when it costs him the most. Readers have called the slow burn “deliciously well done,” and the complicated father-daughter relationship between Oraya and her monstrous adoptive father adds extraordinary emotional depth.
4. Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
A witch. A witch hunter. A fake romance that becomes devastatingly real.
In a world where magic-wielders are hunted and executed, Rune hides her powers behind a socialite’s smile while secretly rescuing witches as the vigilante known as the Crimson Moth. When she decides to distract the dangerous Gideon Sharpe by pretending to court him, she does not expect him to be layered, conflicted, and magnetically compelling beneath his cold exterior.
This instant New York Times bestseller is a masterclass in romantic tension — every interaction between Rune and Gideon hums with the danger of exposure and the ache of impossible attraction. The sequel, Rebel Witch, continues the cat-and-mouse game splendidly.
5. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
In 1714, a young woman makes a bargain with the darkness itself and receives immortality at a devastating price: everyone she meets will forget her.
But the darkness has a face. His name is Luc — seductive, sinister, and endlessly patient. For three hundred years, Addie and Luc circle each other in a dance that blurs every boundary between captor and companion, hatred and desire.
V.E. Schwab’s prose is nothing short of luminous, and Luc is one of the most magnetic villain love interests ever committed to the page. Whether you find their dynamic achingly romantic or deeply unsettling may depend entirely on your own relationship with the dark.
6. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Darkling may be the villain who launched a thousand romantasy obsessions. When ordinary soldier Alina Starkov discovers she is the Sun Summoner, she is swept into the orbit of a man who is ancient, powerful, and devastatingly charismatic. He makes her feel seen in a way no one ever has — which is precisely what makes him so dangerous.
Leigh Bardugo crafted a villain love interest so compelling that readers have never stopped arguing over his merit as a romantic partner. Regardless of where one falls in that debate, the electric tension between light and shadow in this series remains one of the genre’s most unforgettable achievements.
7. Throne in the Dark by A.K. Caggiano
Damien Maleficus Bloodthorne — and yes, that is genuinely his name — is a half-demon on a dark quest to free his cursed father. He wears black exclusively. He broods magnificently. He is evil, and he would like you to know it. Then a tiny, irrepressibly cheerful thief named Amma gets magically chained to his side, and his carefully cultivated villainy begins to crumble in the most entertaining way imaginable.
This grumpy-sunshine romance had readers laughing aloud on every page while simultaneously clutching their hearts. The “villain” who is secretly a complete gentleman, except when he is deliberately trying to be wicked, is a delight we did not know we needed.
8. The Contortionist by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
Here is a villain romance that does not flinch. When a long-abandoned circus roars back to life in Cora Glass’s small town, she is drawn into a world of sentient tents, impossible performers, and a man called the Puppeteer — who is every bit as sinister as that name suggests. This is dark fantasy drenched in atmosphere, where the romance is not gentle and the villain does not apologize for what he is.
Kathryn Ann Kingsley crafted a love story set inside a nightmare, and readers who crave their villain romances with genuine menace have devoured all five books in the Harrow Faire series. Not for the faint of heart, but magnificently dark for those who dare.
9. Malice by Heather Walter
What if Sleeping Beauty were told from the villain’s perspective — and the villain fell in love with the princess? Alyce is a Dark Grace in the kingdom of Briar, reviled for her ability to curse rather than bless. Isolated and bitter, she expects nothing good from the royal family. Then she meets Aurora, and everything shifts.
This sapphic reimagining is tender and furious in equal measure. Heather Walter transforms a familiar tale into something wholly original, and watching Alyce wrestle with her darkest impulses while falling helplessly in love is the kind of exquisite tension that makes villain romances so irresistible.
10. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Juliette’s touch is lethal — anyone she contacts dies. Imprisoned by a regime that wants to weaponize her power, she first encounters Warner as her captor: cold, calculating, and terrifying. He is the villain of her story, full stop. And then, across the course of this series, Tahereh Mafi does something extraordinary — she peels back Warner’s layers until readers are no longer certain who the true monster is.
His evolution from antagonist to one of the most beloved romantic leads in the genre remains one of the great villain-to-love-interest arcs in modern fiction. Warner’s perspective novellas deepen his character further, and the fandom’s devotion to him is legendary.
11. Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas
We would be remiss not to include the historical romance that perfected the villain redemption arc. Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, is introduced in an earlier book as a kidnapper, a rake, and a man of spectacularly questionable morals. Then shy, stammering Evangeline Jenner proposes a marriage of convenience, and slowly, magnificently, love cracks him open.
Lisa Kleypas writes Sebastian’s transformation with such skill that you believe every moment of it — the scoundrel becoming worthy of the woman who saw something in him no one else did. This is the book that proves the best villain love interests are not those who are tamed, but those who choose, at last, to be tender.
12. When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
An assassin for a rebellion. A king who seized his crown through blood and fury. A love that spans ages.
Sarah A. Parker’s internationally bestselling debut drops readers into a breathtaking world of fallen dragons, warring fae, and a romance between two people whose past is far more tangled than either suspects. Kaan Vaegor is the morally complex king whose “would burn the world for her” energy has made him a reader favourite, while Raeve is the kind of fierce heroine who matches him blade for blade. The prose is lush, the twists are sharp, and the slow burn is exquisitely agonising.
13. Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
Inspired by Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, this blood-soaked fantasy follows an exiled princess and a grief-stricken aristocrat through a deadly competition where participants can leap between bodies.
Calla and Anton are both morally grey enough to qualify as villains in someone else’s story, and their passionate, manipulative romance crackles with danger. Chloe Gong’s adult debut trades the lighter touch of her YA work for something fiercer and more unsparing. Every kiss is a power play. Every alliance is temporary. And the question at the story’s heart — “What if love isn’t enough?” — gives the romance a devastating weight that lingers long after the final page.
14. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Galadriel — El to her reluctant acquaintances — is destined for darkness. Attending a magical school where the building itself tries to kill you, she possesses terrifying destructive power and a family legacy steeped in dark magic. She is, by every metric, built to be a villain.
Enter Orion Lake, the school’s golden hero, who keeps inexplicably saving her life. Their dynamic is an absolute joy — prickly, reluctant, and fizzing with tension. Naomi Novik flips the villain-and-hero romance on its head by making the potential villain the protagonist we root for most fiercely, and the result is one of the cleverest, most satisfying romantasy series in recent memory.
15. Furyborn by Claire Legrand
Two women. Two timelines. Two epic love stories woven through prophecy, war, and the kind of power that could unmake a world.
Claire Legrand intertwines the stories of Rielle, whose magic is dangerously uncontrollable, and Eliana, a bounty hunter centuries later, both navigating romances with morally ambiguous figures who blur every line between hero and villain.
The scope is grand, the stakes enormous, and the romantic entanglements are knotted with betrayal and longing. For readers who want their villain romance served alongside sweeping world-building and genuinely unpredictable twists, Furyborn delivers with magnificent ambition.
Why We Cannot Resist the Villain Love Interest
There is a reason this trope endures, and it is not merely that villains tend to have better wardrobes — though they absolutely do. The villain love interest gives us permission to explore the tension between what is wise and what is wanted, between safety and passion, between the person we ought to choose and the one who sets our pulse racing. In the hands of a skilled author, this tension becomes the engine of a story we simply cannot put down.
Every book on this list understands that the best villain romances are not about excusing wicked behaviour. They are about the alchemy that occurs when a sharp mind meets an equally sharp adversary, and something unexpected sparks between them.
We hope you find your next magnificent obsession among these pages. Happy reading, and do try not to fall for anyone too dangerous.
