YALLFest doesn’t usually do ticketed signings for debut authors, but when they did for Shannon J. Spann, I was excited that it came with an early copy of the book.
A Stage Set For Villains [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is told from Riven’s perspective, starting with an incident in her childhood. A Player, or immortal actor of the playhouse curses her when she’s going to get marked, which will prevent her from being able to lie. That curse is slowly killing her, so now, at 18, she decides to sneak into the Playhouse to infiltrate the contest to steal one Player’s immortality. However, she doesn’t count on the Lead Player, Jude, taking an interest her and complicating her plans.
I have slightly complicated feelings about this book. One one hand, I enjoyed the premise, and especially loved the world building. This really pulls on theater for the world, blending terminology and details in really fun ways. For example, magic is Craft, and the divide between north and south is The Cut. It amused me to see how Shannon blended theater into the worldbuilding.
My biggest issue with this book is the pacing. Parts were engaging and interesting, and other parts dragged for me. I went through several cycles of being sucked in, then bored, and back. I think that with cutting 50-100 pages, this would’ve been a stronger story, and been a five star read for me.
Literary Hypewoman 
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