Seize the Day: A World Conquest Isekai

Empress, Book 1

By: J. V. Simms

Narrated by: Hollie Jackson

Length: 19 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

When an ambitious teenage girl from Earth finds herself in a magical realm, she could be the hero—but she'd prefer to be the villain.

When power-hungry Everly is reborn into a medieval world where elemental magic rules and she receives her elemental servants—the oddly sadistic Eris and the fun-loving Titania—years earlier than one typically would, she knows she's destined for a command of necromantic magic the likes of which her peers can only dream.

Though she's the bastard daughter of a count and a precariously positioned concubine, Everly is determined to be a conqueror, warlord, and queen. She could be the hero of the realm, the person to save everyone, with her protectors—the Silver Lance—and her beautiful mage lover by her side.

But Everly's no hero. She's an aspiring villain, seeking the freedom that comes with doing wrong. And before long, she'll make everyone fear the name of the Empress . . .

The first volume of the hit portal fantasy series—with more than 400,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2024 J. V. Simms (P)2024 Podium Audio

Brilliant yet scary!

We seem to live in the world of illogical fantasy, if people where given power would they be good or evil 😈
Most books take us down the path of chaotic good or even neutral good.
This book is not for the faint of heart and it is well done without being gross. Very well done and told by narrator and author!
Waiting with bated breath for the next, bravo!!

Read the prologue, Its an evil MC. Negative reviews cause it hurt your sense of morals is .................

Good listen

The story was good but the pace could be better I wish it had some world building

Meh

This is a hard one to review. It's fun to cheer for villains, and Evelyn is definitely a villain. She is a narcissistic sociopath who treats the world as her playground, trolling the world for her own amusement. Sounds fun, right? Somehow, it just isn't. Her character is... I want to say inconsistent, but I'm not sure that is correct. In this book, she is basically trying to figure out what type of villain she wants to be, so her actions are all over there place. I think maybe the next book could be good and I'm willing to give it a shot, but I definitely think this one could have been done better. However, on balance, I'd say it is worth giving a try if you are on the fence about it.

Borderline cringe.

If you want to listen to an unchallenged brat force people to whine and beg this is your thing. Personally, there’s only so much I can take.

*Empress* takes all the tropes that people hate about generic hero types and mirrors them… but does so in a way that the problems still exist. (In a meta sense, which breaks verisimilitude.)

Excellent!

Love the plot! The narration was top tier! Can't wait for book 2 to follow the MC on her way to become The Empress.

this was excellent

oh my God I love this so much I don't want to give too many spoilers but the main character is excellent and it's very different

unexpected story also loved the banter

the banter between the characters was hilarious 😂.
Frankly though the story was more darker then I anticipated I was expecting more of an anti-hero story this is more of a story of a narcissistic Harley Quinn type of crazy meets fantasy world which was both unexpected and a kinda nice surprise

what in the wackadoodle!?

the prologue didn't catch me a bit but as soon as ch1 started it hooked, can't wait till Aug for the second book cause from start to finish this was a rollercoaster of primal feelings and terrible but greatly placed nerd humor and grusom visuals in word.

A painful slog

Inconsistent characters, constant reliance on referential humor, and despite the interesting premise the main character is a painfully poorly written character. The author seems to not understand what drama or pivotal character moments are. The story feels like someone took a nice car and drove it into a ditch.

I hope the ending sticks.

Pretty difficult to write an MC who is aware they sound like a cartoon villian, but with too much narcissism to care and not make them an awful listen. In this instance I think they did an alright job. The author chose to balance the MC by making some of the other characters truly distasteful and using them as foil. It was definitely a book 1 so it will be interesting to see where it goes. There is a lot of potential here, the author avoided a lot of pitfalls by establishing that in the instances where her logic won't hold up, her narcissism patches the holes.

I wasn't a fan of the potential tether, I'm looking forward to a ridiculous story of bombastic villiany, so I hope the ending sticks. Her and Grail even made sure there is a hero with reason to oppose her just for fun.

It was worth the credit.