I finally finished the sequel’s first draft late last year. It was about two years after Vicious came out that was like, “Fine, you can do more of these books.” So I actively started working on the sequel in between my other projects. So even though it had a quieter start than my Shades of Magic series, it has grown by the exact same increment every six months for five years. So I worked really hard to design Vicious as a standalone with the hope that I would get to come back to this world. And the last thing I wanted to do was leave readers with a cliffhanger if the publisher decided there wasn’t enough of an audience to merit a follow-up. I was coming off of the Archive series, which I hadn’t been able to finish. It was really important that I designed a book that could stand alone. Schwab: Vicious was my first adult novel, and we had no idea how it was going to be received. Paste: Why was there a five-year gap between Vicious’s release in 2013 and Vengeful’s release this year? We caught up with Schwab at the Decatur Book Festival to talk all things Vengeful, including why she rewrote the entire book this spring, what we can learn from her female characters, and what she’s writing next. Vengeful picks up five years after the insane events of book one, ratcheting up the stakes and introducing two kickass women with extraordinary powers.

Victor and Eli return in Vengeful, Schwab’s New York Times bestselling sequel released last week.

Because gaining powers doesn’t make you a hero…it just makes you dangerous.Īnd it’s easy for dangerous people to get drunk on power. In 2013’s Vicious, college students Victor and Eli discover the answer is more terrifying than they imagined. Schwab’s Villains series asks a stunning question: What if a near-death experience could give you superpowers? We’re giving away a Vengeful prize pack here!

Vengeful victoria schwab