If you have been waiting for the conclusion to V.E. Schwab’s Villains series, your patience is about to be rewarded, and not a moment too soon. Victorious, the third and final book in the trilogy, is published tomorrow, 6 October 2026, by Tor Books in the US, with Titan Books handling the UK edition.
For those who came in late: Vicious arrived in 2013 and introduced Victor Vale and Eli Ever, two university friends turned mortal enemies after a near-death experiment left them with superhuman abilities. Vengeful followed in 2018. That makes the gap before the finale roughly eight years, which is longer than most of the grudges in the books, and these are people who take grudges seriously.
The publisher’s pitch is that this is the triumphant conclusion to the series, and the blurb promises “unexpected allies” and “shocking new abilities” as Victor, Sydney and company infiltrate EON headquarters to take on a new director with dangerous plans. The teaser line says it all: “Eli Ever. Victor Vale. Two men, first best friends, then mortal enemies, each destined to be the other’s shadow.” Nobody has ever described a friendship breakdown quite so efficiently, and I include several divorces I have witnessed.
It is also the longest book in the series, at 592 pages in the US edition (544 in the UK). Whatever else happens, nobody can say the author rushed the ending. The cover, designed by Will Staehle of Unusual Co., goes for minimalist architecture with the principal characters silhouetted in a pyramid on white, which looks refreshingly calm for a book about people who can hurt each other without touching.
Schwab fans have not exactly been starved in the meantime, with the Shades of Magic books, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and, more recently, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil all in the bibliography. Still, the Villains readers have been waiting on one question for years: who ends up victorious? Given the title, I suspect the answer is not “the reader’s nerves”.
A signed Barnes & Noble edition with a bonus epilogue is on offer while stocks last, and an author tour has been confirmed. We have not read the book, so there are no spoilers here, just a cautious hope that somebody gets what they deserve.
Join the conversation (0)