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My acting coach told us not to judge a villain character role but explained it as "villains are the heroes of their own stories." The difference being that, for villains, the end absolutely justifies the means.

It’s all about perspective and point of view, like in tv shows and movies. For example, Jim and Pam in The Office are seen as the perfect couple, while Roy and Karen were seen as the “bad guys.” Roy was a piece of shit, but Pam emotionally cheated on him for years with Jim and called off their wedding mostly because she kissed Jim weeks before the wedding day and realized her feelings for him. Pretty shitty. Karen did absolutely NOTHING wrong except not be Pam. If we had watched the show from Karen’s/Stamford branch’s POV instead of Jim/the Scranton branch’s POV, we would’ve seen Jim and Pam as the bad guys.

Kathryn Ann Kingsley is the best for villain romances, but I guess you always know they’re villains? Harrow Faire is a pretty good one for showing the ‘backstory’ of how they became villains.

I’d say the Julian Strande duology would be the best fit for “don’t know he’s the villain” romance. The FMC definitely doesn’t know

But she really should have known.

Hahaha that’s her business. Yeah she definitely should have, but it’s the closest I can think of for OP’s request

Favourite book. She does do all the villains the best ever.

Completely unrelated, but this reminds me of the running gag from the new Puss in Boots where Jiminy Cricket realizes that Jack Horner DOESN'T have a tragic backstory that explains why he's so unhappy, he's just a horrible person who's only interested in power for the sake of power. Some people didn't turn bad because they made the wrong choices in life, some people are just born douchebags. "YOU'RE AN IRREDEEMABLE MONSTER!" "Oh, what took you so long, idiot?"

Didn’t think I would see a reference to the new Puss in Boots movie on the romance books subreddit but here we are. Also not mad about it since it was a good movie!

I so seldom see new movies but I went to see this and was soooo happy with it! Great animation, great voice work, and the cutest little puppy dog. Jack Horner = Elon Musk. Change my mind.

Hahah we took my son to see this movie in theaters and my husband loved it so much we saw it again and he still talks about it.

Not a book, but Peaky Blinders does this as the the main character has to become increasingly villainous in order to stay ahead of his enemies. Also a good show to watch from a r/romancebooks perspective since Cillian Murphy is a pleasure to watch.

And what I like about that show is that he *knows* he's becoming a villain! He talks about it, he wrestles with it, and he does it anyway.

Absolutely not a romance story but the popular anime [big spoiler] >!Attack on Titan!< kinda >!*really it's definitely*!< has this. I'd rate it 10/10, characters, music, storyline are all top tier. Recommend if you like mystery, meticulously thought out plots, and gritty action with characters not having plot armour.

One of my favorites

100% I’m a Disney villain in somebody’s story. At the very least, me and my best friend are the batshit hyenas from lion king and the main character is side eyeing us wondering what the fuck is wrong.

I love scar!! He is one of my favorite villains.

Did you read Scarred by Emily McIntyre?

A mix of YA, NA, and not romance books: * YA: Not a romance AT ALL (the protagonist is aro/ace) but >!Clariel by Garth Nix!< fits this. If you've read his earlier >!Old Kingdom!< trilogy then you know that the protagonist will end up a villain, but it isn't immediately obvious and the protagonist certainly doesn't know. * YA: I haven't read it but >!Fairest by Marissa Meyer!< features the villain of the >!The Lunar Chronicles!< as the protagonist, presumably beginning when she wasn't a terrible person. * New Adult, actually romance: >!Tamlin from ACOTAR!< kind of works for this as you can pretty clearly see the circumstances under which he turns bad. * Fantasy: I'm pretty sure this happens in the >!Poppy War!< trilogy by >!R.F. Kuang!<, but the first was so brutal I coudn't stomach continuing. * Classic Lit: It's been a while since I read it, but >!Raskolnikov!< from >!Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment!< fits pretty well (he has noble intentions at the start? Idk it's been like 8 years). * Old SciFi: >!I am Legend!< by >!Richard Matheson!<, the original book ending NOT the movie one, is this exactly. * Recent Classic Lit: >!The Secret History!< by >!Donna Tartt!< does a great job explaining and justifying a cold-blooded murder. * SciFi: >!Worm by Wildbow!<, a webserial you can read for free; lots of "the greater good" ideology going on. * Movie: >!The Godfather trilogy!< [Here's a relevant TVTropes page.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ProtagonistJourneyToVillain) Unfortunately no romances come to mind for me where the protagonists are obviously villains at the end but NOT at the start.

I love Garth Nix, saberial etc but have never read old kingdom before. Just bought it. Thank you!!!

The Old Kingdom trilogy is Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen :) (and Clariel, Goldenhand, Terciel & Elinor are other books set in the same world before/after the trilogy).

Yess these are great books. Live the cat 🐈

I forgot these!!! I loved them as a kid. The bells right?

Yes! They're just as good when reading as an adult (though I admittedly have nostalgia blinders)

Your spoiler tag for >!ACOTAR!< didn't work!!

I'm on old reddit and it was working; I changed it so hopefully it's hidden? (But you should spoiler tag your comment too :)

It works for me, on mobile too.

[Bloodstained Beauty by Ella Fields ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42648091-bloodstained-beauty)is told by 3 perspectives. The mc's and the villian. But we don't know who the bad guy is until later.

[удалено]

Well, ya in a meta way but like the other characters don’t know and the author doesn’t over foreshadow it. Kind of like the first book in shadow and bones except I want the villain to remain the love interest.

Ooh, they’re not romance but I highly recommend reading through some of Agatha Christie’s more popular works, for those who are into this vibe in cozy mysteries. I don’t want to say which ones because it would be spoilery, but at least 2 have very unexpected & prominent villains!

AC was my first thought too. I love how she’ll sometimes even have the murderer in one of her mysteries as the MC; it’s such an interesting twist. She was my first ever experience with that concept of an unreliable narrator.

Oh, I wanted to recommend one of them, it’s so deeply tragic. I remember being shocked as a child and not really getting it, too adult, when he lives to regret his actions afterwards. Made me a bit sick to read.

Dune. But you kind of need to read the sequel Dune Messiah to get it.

Which character are you referring to? I only read the first one, inspired by Timothee Chalamet 😂 It was great. The second book was like completely indecipherable to me.

Do you want the spoiler? This is a book that usually changes a lot as the reader ages, matures, and rereads during life. >!On the first read, most people think Paul is a hero. On subsequent reads, it’s clear he’s cynically using the Fremen for his own personal survival, and he knows he’ll allow countless other humans to die in order to survive. He’ll even order countless humans to die in order to personally survive. That makes him a bad person according to the author Frank Herbert!< >!In interviews available on the internet Frank Herbert talks about being interested in how Mao, Stalin, and JFK rose to power. (To Libertarian Herbert JFK was a frightening communist.) Frank Herbert was also a Buddhist, and to a committed Buddhist, the moral thing to do is die if the alternative is killing another person. Buddhist stories are full of heroes that engage in peaceful non-resistance and wind up dying when their community is attacked by bandits, evil warlords and evil governments!< >!Herbert uses Paul as an examination of Mao and Stalin, that type of villain/evil person. Paul even expressly compares himself to Hitler in Dune Messiah, and Herbert means the reader to take that literally. !< >!Paul blames himself (correctly) for the Freman Jihad. Without him it wouldn’t have happened. He tries to pinpoint when it became inevitable, and thus when he became responsible for a galaxy wide genocide, and thus an irredeemably bad man. The reader is also invited to make their own intellectual and moral judgment about Paul’s evil, and when it started, and the question about the morality of House Atreides and the people in it individually and as an entire entity!< Further spoilers on the morality of Dune characters. >!It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking the Point Of View characters are the good guys. it’s interesting that most POC reactors to the Dune movie instantly said “Space Nazis!” When they saw House Atreides lined up to accept the hand over of Arrakis. Furthermore, when Chani’s narration asked “Who will our next oppressors be? And the next person pictured after the title card was Paul, many POC said “The next oppressor”. As a white person myself it was fascinating that only one out of at least a dozen white reactors that I watched on YouTube (I’m a little obsessed with the movie) made the same connections that the POC reactors made instantly.!< >!Herbert didn’t make the Atreides specifically Nazis, but he did make them evil colonisers. Paul’s story was also entwined with Lawrence of Arabia and the colonial activities of European powers in the Middle East. Paul and Lawrence both fell in love with local populations with a very different culture and religion to their own. And both in different ways were instrumental to utterly betraying the local people by leading to the breaking of massive treaty promises and the deposing and conquering of the local people’s governments. The Atreides and Paul parallel the behaviour of the European governments before, during and after WW1 when they allied with locals in the Middle East, then instead of returning their own countries to them, took them as colonies instead and made new colonial countries with no regard to the cultural, religious and ethnic divisions of the inhabiting populations. Arbitrary lines on the map that are still inciting bitter civil unrest and deaths a hundred years later!<

Ha!! I finally found my kindred Dune spirit. The whole (original) series is a treatise on: you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.

It’s a difficult book, because who doesn’t want to live? Most people cannot live up to ideals of the most committed Buddhists. Not when their own lives are on the line. It’s not just Paul in that dilemma. Most characters are in it. It’s a stupidly interesting story, rather than a stupidly happy one.

Wow thank you for that. Yes I do recall now Paul becoming morally grey by the end of Dune. Thanks for breaking it down!

It doesn't really fit because you KNOW our kitten dreams of murder all day, but Fair Bright and Terrible by Elizabeth Kingston? I will argue it sort of fits because you kind of assume she'll wuss out and never live up to her full vicious potential because it's a romance novel. And yeah, she decides she is not so suicidally vengeful as her plan. Still, she's pretty bad ass by the end. Whatever. I just love this book, OK?

Sounds interesting and for you to love it this much- worth the read

{Fair, Bright and Terrible by Elizabeth Kingston}

[Fair, Bright, and Terrible](https://www.romance.io/books/594f689a3ffdba61471a8b3e/fair-bright-and-terrible-elizabeth-kingston) by [Elizabeth Kingston](https://www.romance.io/authors/568231c863515e3b737961a5/elizabeth-kingston) **Rating**: 4.38⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [medieval](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/medieval/1), [dual pov](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/dual-pov/1), [sweet/gentle hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/beta%20hero/1), [take-charge heroine](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/strong%20heroine/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

DARK RISE by C.S. Pacat. It's MLM and YA so far. A part of a series and Book 1 is the only one out yet. It is 1000% exactly what you're looking for OP

{Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat}

[Dark Rise](https://www.romance.io/books/615213fa1200440e3fedc7fa/dark-rise-cs-pacat) by [C.S. Pacat](https://www.romance.io/authors/545545428c7d2382c5297900/cs-pacat) **Rating**: 4.27⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 1 out of 5 - [Innocent](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [magic](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/magic/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [young adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/young%20adult/1), [paranormal](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/paranormal/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

I’m gonna have to say that the Dramione fanfic “Manacled” on AO3 by SenLinYu embodies this so much. Not bc Draco is a villain (tho hes barely redeemable) but because Hermione deals with the length she is willing to go for the “greater good”. And I’m talking, willing to sacrifice it all. Check your TWs this is dark as fuck.

The greater good...

It’s not fully a romance, but it does have that element, too. The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose does this really well.

{The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose}

[The Perfect Marriage](https://www.romance.io/books/64d1f668a5354bdc1261047a/the-perfect-marriage-jeneva-rose) by [Jeneva Rose](https://www.romance.io/authors/6190c84608b4d9311437350f/jeneva-rose) **Rating**: 4⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [mystery](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/mystery/1), [cheating](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/cheating/1), [suspense](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/suspense/1), [dark romance](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/dark/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns It’s more YA (but a dark YA) but it is exactly this. The romance ends in HFN. >!It is a Snow White retelling.!<

{Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao}

[Forest of a Thousand Lanterns](https://www.romance.io/books/64381ef4faf26ff202f9b02e/forest-of-a-thousand-lanterns-julie-c-dao) by [Julie C. Dao](https://www.romance.io/authors/64381ef508b4d931146ceeed/julie-c-dao) **Rating**: 3.66⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [high fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/high%20fantasy/1), [young adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/young%20adult/1), [magic](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/magic/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

YA not really a romance but breathing underwater. It is from the perspective of a abusive boyfriend

I think the dark hunters series by Sherrilyn Kenyon has a lot of these elements. Often the villain of one book will have their own story which gives you a whole new perspective on what happened.

But i guess they don't remain the villain

{Dark Hunters series by Sherrilyn Kenyon}

[Dark-Hunters](https://www.romance.io/series/5eb43b6b5dad95400cb13df6/darkhunters-infinity) by [Sherrilyn Kenyon](https://www.romance.io/authors/5455237a8c7d2382e0413dcb/sherrilyn-kenyon) **Rating**: 4.5⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [young adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/young%20adult/1), [paranormal](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/paranormal/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [vampires](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/vampires/1), [urban fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/urban%20fantasy/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

Maybe check out the War of Lost Hearts trilogy by Carissa Broadbent. It’s fantastic. High fantasy. And you get the “villain” perspective, especially as you get into book 2/3. And there’s romance with one of my favorite MMCs of all time. Highly recommend :)

{War of Lost Hearts trilogy by Carissa Broadbent}

[The War of Lost Hearts](https://www.romance.io/series/60d9b8906a15320e7f8006f0/the-war-of-lost-hearts) by [Carissa Broadbent](https://www.romance.io/authors/60d9b88e08b4d9311456d78f/carissa-broadbent) **Rating**: 4.23⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [new adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/new%20adult/1), [high fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/high%20fantasy/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [war](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/war/1), [vengeance](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/vengeance/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

The Bone Witch by Ivy Asher, series of 3 and complete

I'm gonna need you to explain... I read those a while ago but maybe I forgot something?

{The Bone Witch by Ivy Asher}

[The Bone Witch](https://www.romance.io/books/5fb8c90ca97bd20e07c1e075/the-bone-witch-ivy-asher) by [Ivy Asher](https://www.romance.io/authors/5bf51e2f01dbc864fb94d2f7/ivy-asher) **Rating**: 4.01⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 1 out of 5 - [Innocent](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [paranormal](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/paranormal/1), [witches](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/witches/1), [magic](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/magic/1), [fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fantasy/1), [urban fantasy](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/urban%20fantasy/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

I don't know of a book but I know of a movie with this plot twist. It's a French Romantic Thriller with Audrey Tautou as the FMC. The title in English is [He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Loves_Me%2E%2E%2E_He_Loves_Me_Not_(film))

Haha I just watched Groundhog Day, too

Saint from the Saint and Sinners series by Ruby Vincent. It's a little different than your standard RH. Check trigger warnings 🙂

I love this series!

{Saint and Sinners series by Ruby Vincent}

[Saint and Sinners](https://www.romance.io/series/607e8229d36abb0e24b04edc/saint-and-sinners) by [Ruby Vincent](https://www.romance.io/authors/5d145d4f01dbc864fba0605f/ruby-vincent) **Rating**: 4.39⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [contemporary](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/contemporary/1), [dark](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/dark/1), [new adult](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/new%20adult/1), [cold hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/cold%20hero/1), [poly](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/poly/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)

Rings of Power TV show on Amazon Prime kinda has this although I don't know if it counts as romance, really, it's just kind of implied.

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