Never a Hero

Written by Vanessa Len

Narrated by Vera Chok

These Violent Delights meets This Savage Song in this sequel to the contemporary fantasy Only a Monster from Vanessa Len that New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Garber called ""mind-bending, heart wrenching, and unputdownable!”

Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick.

But her success has come at a terrible cost.

She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that a greater and more dangerous enemy is still out there.

When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.

Torn between love and family and monstrous choices, Joan must find a way to re-gather her old allies to face down the deadliest of enemies, and to save the timeline itself.

Vanessa Len’s stunning Only a Monster trilogy continues with this second instalment, a thrilling journey where a secret past threatens to unravel everyone's future. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9780063024724

Vanessa Len

Vanessa Len writes YA fantasy about girl antiheroes, monsters, and enemies who are maybe in love. She’s read every Diana Wynne Jones book more times than she can count. She’s a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and she lives in Melbourne, Australia. Only a Monster is Vanessa’s first novel, and you can visit her online at vanessalen.com.

Reviews for Never a Hero

[Billie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Never a Hero
by Vanessa Len
Monsters #2
YA Fantasy Urban Paranormal
Ages: 13+
Scribd Audio

Joan remembers everything and only a few others remember some of the timeline she reset to save her family, but still lost someone she loved. Now living with what she had done, Joan is now a stranger to those she had grown close to in the other timeline.

A few months into the new timeline, Joan is still trying to put her life back together and deal with her unsettling family's secret power, which she also possesses. But those who work for the king find her, and in catching her, Nick, who does not remember who he was in the other timeline, gets involved, and they are both once again pulled into the world of the monsters.


Book two in the Monsters is a good story, the characters are relatable, and the plot keeps moving at a steady pace. But it did lose a star because of the repetitive sentence 'recaps'. I don't need to know, for example, 'the sky was filled with lightning, flashing, making her blink,' in the next paragraph after it was already explained 'thunder cracked as lightning flashed in overhead.' This happened a lot, especially at the start of a new chapter, as if the author was reminding herself what had just happened at the end of the previous chapter. It got irritating.

As in the first book, I still don't like the term 'monsters' for these time-traveling people. Yes, I get why they call themselves monsters, but to me, that term isn't the right one, that one is the vampires and the such, not so much these kinds of humans. The bad ones are more like mobsters. The monster term I think is clickbait, making the reader think MONSTERS, which I fell for. I went into the first book thinking scary. This is not scary. These 'monsters' are your typical greedy humans but with powers they can't always control, though most don't want to control it.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good story: action, drama, family, and moves along at a pretty good pace.

3 Stars