The book has a little bite to keep the reader interested in the book. The plot to the story doesn’t appear to be addressed until a little later in the book. All three main heroine characters are mysterious with their own baggage and there is no need for men to come around sniffing for money. I like that Catriona is a mysterious character that no one can figure out. The story has its entertainment that is good. The story moves quick with engaging performances. I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers of Villian of the Piece. A great, quick read that is action-packed and female lead. A read that make you want to root for the bad guys.

I'm going to be honest and say that I don't love male writers writing wlw love scenes, but I'm trying to expand, so I read it anyways.

I think Cannon had a lot of promise with this plot, but it ended up falling flat. He didn't go into the characters and their stories enough to make it feel more dimensional. Maybe if the book had been longer? Though, I don't know, sometimes the book actually felt too long.

I didn't really love any of the characters and I kind of really hate it when main characters exchange "I love yous" so quickly after meeting each other. it doesn't feel realistic to me and takes me out of the story.

All in all, it was kinda meh, for me personally.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy!

I tried but I couldn't connect to any of the characters (Catriona's POV was interesting) but ultimately I felt that none of the characters truly developed beyond surface level.

2.5 stars

Published: Nov 1, 2022
**Thank you to NetGalley who provided this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
#VillainofthePiece #NetGalley

Basics
Author: he/him, from USA
Genre: fiction, LGBT
Setting: high-crime low-income city suburb
Themes: violence, protection, revenge
Mood: apathetic

Characters
Whitney: bar owner who rents the apt above the bar to Catriona
Maureen: Catriona's "eye in the sky"/ a hacker
Catriona: ex-govt assassin on the run

Pros
+ all 3 MCs are strong women in different ways (a violent assassin with no qualms and few words, a super hacker, and a brawny barkeep)
+ LGBT rep: f/f, lesbian
+ on-page f/f sex scenes (instead of fade-to-black)
+ good-for-her revenge content

Cons
- Despite my predisposition to love a female assassin, a female hacker, and a brawny female barkeep... I am not connecting with them at all. There is a huge problem with character development. They've only been established on a surface level, with only a bit of backstory for Whitney.
- I absolutely CANNOT suspend my disbelief over Maureen telling Whitney their real names WHEN THEY ARE ON THE RUN FROM THE GOVT. Really? And you're mad at her for Googling your suspicious ass? Maybe don't give strangers your real name even if they're nice?! No way would a trained operative make that dumb of a mistake. Or so all my spy TV shows tell me.
- Also, they sleep together and Maureen tells Whitney all about their past? Yeah. Right. It has been a few days of intimacy. *eye roll*
- Oh. It got worse. I love yous after a few weeks. 🤡
- Because the assassin is so over-powered it takes away any tension, any stakes from the kingpin clash... it makes everything oddly low stakes
- this really should have been from Catriona's POV as she is the only one doing anything interesting

TW: torture, violence, murder

The concept of this book was great but the delivery was repetitive and confusing at times. I think I would have liked this better if it had been a single or dual POV instead of multiple. I found myself just wanting the book to be over and to get to the point. Catriona was interesting but I don't think she was given enough of a background story or POV time.

I really wanted to like this book. It fell very flat and I couldn't quite get into it. The premise of the book sounded fascinating but the story was just not well done.

I tried to like this book but it was not a book for me. I ended up Not finishing the book. The book is well written but could not hold my interest at all

Catriona Hendrix has been kidnapped. In Villain of the Piece get ready to jump right into the torture Catriona had to endure. What has she done? Why are they asking for information? Who is Catriona? We see her handler open up about this all throughout the book.
Minding her business, Whitney is at her bar “The Whipjack”, when Maureen stumbles in with a hard-to-refuse offer. What is more, the bag of cash silenced all of the red flags. As Whitney rented her the apartment for who we later find out is an injured Catriona. In addition to the secrecy of renting the apartment, what will looking the other way means to Whitney? At least, she now has the money to continue to pay the local goons their protection money. Will it be worth it?

Geonn Cannon’s Villian of the Piece divulges just the right amount of information needed to find the good in Catriona. In just the right amount throughout the story. Indeed the relationship that blossoms took me by surprise. You have everything in this book. Will Maureen find the men that tortured Catriona? Can the small Seattle town survive the local goons? Can Catriona talk some sense into “Koko”? Suspense, romance, and badassery.

I really wish this were longer. Felt rushed and weird towards the end. It’s such a great title and cover picture that I was so excited to read it and discover the meaning.

I really enjoyed all of the strong female leads (both physically and mentally) and that this was a super fast and easy read.
It was a bit fantastical for me in the fact that it dealt with crime lords, government operatives and small towns.
It felt too unrealistic that it could actually be real but I definitely didn't not like this story,
I would definitely read another novel by this author.

Villain of the Piece by Geonn Cannon

Intense, stressful, terrifying, and painful for the main character beginning to the story that had me cringing while hoping the woman being tortured would survive and escape…even NOT knowing why she was in the predicament she was enduring.

What I liked:
* The plot, pacing, writing, and character development
* Catriona: government agent, loner, lethal, skilled, survivor, strategist, colored in shades of grey, has her own moral compass
* Maureen: Catriona’s God’s Eye/handler, computer genius, unique skill set, trained to be lethal, strong, intelligent, interested in Whitney
* Whitney: owner of Whipjack Tavern, scraping by, dealing with protection racket, daughter of a con artist, interested in her community and in Maureen
* That the main characters were female, strong, resilient, almost super-heroes in their abilities and skills – trying to figure out who Catriona reminds me of…maybe a female Jack Reacher or Evan Smoak?
* The look at the shades of gray some people must operate under
* That the bad guys were dealt with…even if rather ruthlessly
* Wondering if this is the first in a series or a one and done

What I didn’t like:
* Who and what I was meant not to like
* Thinking about how easily it seems it is for some to play God and decide who lives and who dies

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

This was an interesting thriller focusing on a former "asset" from "the company," her handler, and the bar owner/landlord they rent a room from. The story opens with a woman being beaten and tortured, while this might sound horrific, the author wrote this chapter in a way that was descriptive, but for me, didn't feel horrifically triggering. (Each person's trigger is obviously extremely different). The handler rescues the asset and brings her to the room above the bar of the Whipjack, that she just overpaid for. The asset eventually discovers that the owner of the bar and her landlord, is being made to pay "protection" money. She follows the extortionist and so begins the meat of the story. The three end up having to manage the extortion racket and possibly whoever tortured the asset.
The story went in a direction I really didn't see coming. It was a ton of fun. Obviously, this story is violent. The bloody hands on the cover try to show you just how violent. This was a great read that didn't make me feel like the violence was sensationalized. This was a great exploration of various tropes and a fantastic spy novel as well.

3.5 stars. This is a book with strong female characters who are not afraid of some violence. And with some violence I mean a lot of violence. This book is dark and gritty and the characters are not your average good guys. In fact, it’s more a bad guys fight worse situation. I like morally grey characters and this book is one big morally grey zone. This is clearly the first book in a series and I have to admit that after reading the blurb I had expected something quite differently and I found it had some bumps, which is why I’m not completely sold on this series yet. Yet, it’s an enjoyable rather short read and the ending does make me curious about what will follow.

Catriona is someone who makes problems go away, when she is captured, tortured and freed, she needs a place to heal. She finds a place to hide above a bar, with a friendly bar owner, Whitney. However, when Catriona and her business partner Maureen find out Whitney is being extorted by a local villain they can’t let that go unnoticed.
When I read this in the blurb I expected the book to be mainly about Catriona, so imagine my surprise when I found out that she actually has a relative minor role in this book. I did like her parts in the book best, and it seems her role will be bigger in books to come, but I did not get the feeling that I got to know her and I wished for more character development on her part. I hope this will come in the follow up book.

The largest part of the book focuses on the problems in the bar and on the romance that develops. The romance was a bit odd to me as I didn’t get the feeling they were attracted to each other at all (it wasn’t even clear to me for one of the two characters if she even was into women) and all of the sudden they were having a hot sex scene that was very visual. It’s hard to describe, but I felt like I could see everything they were doing but not feel it. When the romance further developed I kept missing an emotional element between the two.

Vengeance can be so satisfying when you realize how hopeless and unfair some situations are. Especially when it is delivered by Catriona, who almost seems to have superpowers. This part of the book I enjoyed a lot and I have a feeling that Catriona has a lot more to offer, which holds a promise for books to come.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first read from author and i am glad I started reading this story without any expectation.
Villain of the Piece is a unique novellas about government's secret assassin life after they aren't needed anymore. The prologue really intrigued me, enough to make me care about the characters and followed their story until last page.

For me this book have interesting premise, brimming with potential and enjoyable writing style but lack substance. The most interesting character need development and depth. With additional pages, and stronger plotline this story would improve greatly.

Thank you Netgalley and Supposed Crime Publishing for provided my copy. My opinions and thoughts are my own.

Government assassins, bad male bosses no longer interested in working with females, a changeover of power, a friendly bar owner.....Villain of the Piece has every possible plot point that could go wrong and yet...it doesn't.

Geonn Cannon writes feminists with a voice that sounds real, and vivid and like an actual person. Sometime there are writers who will create a character that speaks in sentence that just.....can not come out of a real person, you know what I mean? Catriona and Maureen are humans, people - people who talk like actual people. It's refreshing.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was a really intriguing story about operatives escaping a messed up situation, and the lengths they will go to in order to survive. But also to help people, in need.

Also about the lines even regular folks are willing to cross for justice, and how that can come in shades of grey.

It's fascinating in that whole, no real Good Vs Evil, only nuances that arise from the various scenarios presented in the plot.

It's a difficult one to talk about without revealing too much plot, except to say that if you're into darker characters who do unthinkable jobs, while trying to maintain a code and some morality, then you're sure to like this story!

The synopsis of this story really made me want to read it. Good beginning, good ending, not so keen on the middle. I usually like Geonn Cannon’s books but was quite disappointed with this one. I liked when Catriona was in it. There was a lot of action but didn’t like it so much when it was only Maureen and Whitney.

Ah, a man who loves to write about women. A man whose name sounds like but isn’t at all spelled like John. A man seemingly too prolific to be good with a number of cheesy titles, series, and TV tie-ins that do no scream quality and yet…this book was actually fairly decent.
In fact, the first 45% or so was almost good, and then it slightly devolved, but remained readable throughout and was appealingly short at just about 200 pages.
So why is the woman on the cover has so much blood on her…well, it’s literal. The book is about a government assassin who after a changeover of powers (the evil male boss no longer was interested in having a female employee, go Geonn, you progressive feminist fighter, you) that be finds herself on the lam. Accompanied by her eye-in-the-sky operative, Maureen, Catriona hides out in a shabby part of Seattle in a shabby apartment above a shabby dive bar owned by a sympathetic and very, very friendly Whitney.
There, Catriona and Maureen stumble upon a local extortion racket and instead of laying low decide to go after the neighborhood crime boss. Cue in action scenes, even a sex scene to boot to steam up the windows. Throw some fists in the air proudly and speak of justice, the real practical kind. Yey. Ta-da.
Thing is, having written that many books, the author obviously has a knack for stringing sentences together to create a fun tale. Yes, he’s prone to overfocusing on certain things, and yes, he is very prone to letting his characters monologue at will with entirely too much exposition (maybe it’s just how he writes/sees women?), but overall, it was entertaining enough and read quickly. Thanks Netgalley.

I enjoyed the intrigue of this novel and I thought it was well written, however I like my mysteries sans romance - or,if it an excellent book I might be able to tolerate a bit of light flirting (and I cringe as I type thiat line re: "flirting" because of I wanted to read a romance (bbbllleeck) I would select a romance not a mystery (the lgbt or straight issue doesn't matter, I just HATE romances? I don't understand the point of combining the genres. Similarly, I have NO desire (wordplay intentional) to be exposed to graphic sex scenes of ANY type (if I wanted to be exposed to graphic sex, I would read or watch pornography). Many thanks to Netgalley for the Advance copy as I enjoyed the "female kick-ass and take no prisoners" main character. I enjoyed how she feared nothing regarding men. Wouldn't it be great if women could physically be equal in strength and we didn't need to carry self defense (even if it is a cell phone we pretend we are talking on when we find ourselves in a relatively isolated area and it is after midnight and a slow male seems to be following you.
For now, THAT part of the story, where our hero/anti-hero could take out numerous men with one punch before they realized she was a threat is a pleasant dream...