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These are villains with complicated morality, interesting backstory and occasionally push you to wish you could root for them. The focus of this list is books and series with female protagonists but others are welcome too. Books where the villain doesn’t show up until later in the series are welcome too because great villains combine mythology with reality and sometimes the legend needs to be built over time
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A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
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Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)
by
Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)
4.71 avg rating — 1,047,552 ratings
score: 199,
and
2 people voted
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| 2 |
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Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)
by
Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)
4.28 avg rating — 1,022,387 ratings
score: 197,
and
2 people voted
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| 3 |
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The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass, #0.1-0.5)
by
Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Author)
4.20 avg rating — 1,128,472 ratings
score: 194,
and
2 people voted
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| 4 |
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Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1)
by
Ilona Andrews (Goodreads Author)
4.05 avg rating — 134,329 ratings
score: 100,
and
1 person voted
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| 4 |
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The Director Must Die: A Stardust Story
by
Dina Thala (Goodreads Author)
4.67 avg rating — 24 ratings
score: 100,
and
1 person voted
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| 4 |
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Magic Dark, Magic Divine (Warrior of the Divine Sword, #1)
by
A.J. Locke (Goodreads Author)
4.06 avg rating — 235 ratings
score: 100,
and
1 person voted
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| 7 |
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Pirate's Paradox (Sentinels of Savannah, #6)
by
Lisa Kessler (Goodreads Author)
4.30 avg rating — 103 ratings
score: 99,
and
1 person voted
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| 8 |
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Pirate's Promise (Sentinels of Savannah, #5)
by
Lisa Kessler (Goodreads Author)
4.35 avg rating — 104 ratings
score: 98,
and
1 person voted
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| 9 |
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Siege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #2)
by
Leigh Bardugo (Goodreads Author)
3.80 avg rating — 679,122 ratings
score: 97,
and
1 person voted
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| 10 |
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Uprooted
by
Naomi Novik (Goodreads Author)
4.02 avg rating — 261,558 ratings
score: 95,
and
1 person voted
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| 11 |
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Sabriel (Abhorsen, #1)
by
Garth Nix (Goodreads Author)
4.16 avg rating — 217,716 ratings
score: 94,
and
1 person voted
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