Violet Thistlewaite: was she ever truly a villain?

Violet Thistlewaite by Emily Krempholtz

I was so excited to see a fantasy book that was essentially about a villain starting over, creating the life they had always wanted. The premise of this book that Violet was previously the right hand to the big bad sorcerer of the land who wanted to make a new name for herself after his death, she just wants a cozy life of little magic, her lovely plants and whatever goodness she can find. Now do not get me wrong a villain can absolutely be redeemed (well most of the time, I'm looking at you Tamlin) but Violet was never the "big bad", she was his right hand, his accomplice and to me his fall guy (well until he died, he kind of had to pay that price). Yes, the sorcerer Guy (listen authors can name their characters whatever they want but the name Guy doesn't really strike fear in me) had Violet using her magic to do some terrible things and she did choose to go along with his plans, but she was never the boss. Personally, I feel like if a book is going to be about a big scary villain starting over, they should be THE big scary villain. Like I want actual struggles with choosing to be good and not the occasional "overwhelming" urge from your once evil based magic. Now do not get me wrong I did enjoy this book I just personally felt like several aspects needed to be either developed a little further or explored deeper. For example, the romance in this book, while entertaining felt EXTREAMLY rushed to me (it may be a "me thing" but this was almost insta-love) and the grumpy/sunshine aspect of the whole thing was odd because this definitely should've been either grumpy/grumpy or a grumpy FMC meets the golden retriever sunshine MMC who pulls her out of the flashbacks to being a villain.

I have also seen the complaints online from other book influencers claiming that this book plagiarized The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst, and while I DEFINITELY can see many similarities, I'm not quite sure if I would immediately jump to screaming plagiarism like you're in the Salem Witch Trials and you just caught a woman reading. (I will however call out plagiarism EVERY time I see it though, looking at you Powerless by Lauren Roberts) I just thing this book has so many aspects that are similar and social media influencers THRIVE on drama!

This book was great for a newly published author, and I am VERY curious about Emilys upcoming release "Prudence Marsh is Not a Nobody Anymore".

We shall see if Violet was created to walk so that Prudence can run!

Let me know your thoughts below, have I have taken over the role of "the villain" with this review or do I need to give Violet a second chance?