Verdict: A lush, atmospheric sapphic Sleeping Beauty retelling told from the villain’s side — slow-burning, morally grey, and quietly devastating.
Best for: Readers who love forbidden romance, fairy-tale retellings, and a heroine who chooses to become the monster the world already calls her.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Medium Spice (Open Door, but restrained)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Tropes: Villain origin story, enemies-to-lovers, forbidden love, morally grey heroine, fairy-tale retelling
Some love stories ask you to root for the hero. Malice asks you to root for the woman everyone has decided is the monster. Heather Walter’s sapphic reimagining of Sleeping Beauty hands the narrative to the Maleficent figure — and then dares you to fall for her just as hard as the princess does. It’s one of the standout picks on our list of spicy sapphic fantasy books, and it earns its place by being genuinely, achingly romantic rather than simply dark for the sake of it.
If you loved the villain-adjacent tenderness of A Dowry of Blood, you’ll recognize the same pull here: a heroine we’re told to fear, written with enough interiority that we understand exactly why she does what she does.
What Is Malice About?
Alyce is a Dark Grace — a magical outcast in the kingdom of Briar, tolerated only because the nobility pays her to brew poisons and curses. Nicknamed “Malice” and treated as something between a servant and a threat, she has spent her whole life being told what she is. Then she meets Aurora, the last princess of a cursed royal line doomed to die young unless the curse is broken. What blooms between them is forbidden on every possible level — and it forces Alyce to decide how far she’ll go, and what she’s willing to become, to save the one person who ever saw her as more than a monster.
What Makes This Villain Romance Work
A villain you actually believe in. Alyce isn’t “bad girl” window dressing. Walter builds her cruelty out of a lifetime of rejection, so her turn toward darkness reads as earned rather than edgy.
Forbidden love with real stakes. The romance between an outcast sorceress and a cursed princess is dangerous for both of them, and the tension comes from genuine consequences, not manufactured misunderstandings.
Atmosphere for days. Briar is gilded and rotten in equal measure, and the writing leans into that gothic fairy-tale mood without ever feeling airless.
A heroine who chooses her own myth. The most satisfying thread is watching Alyce stop apologizing for existing and start deciding what “monster” will mean on her own terms.
Book Synopsis
In the kingdom of Briar, the magical Graces are prized for their gifts of beauty, charm, and healing — all except Alyce, the Dark Grace, whose blood-based magic produces poisons and curses instead. Feared and used by the same courtiers who look down on her, she lives on the margins of a society that will never accept her.
Aurora is the heir to Briar’s throne and the latest victim of an ancient curse: every princess in her line dies before her twenty-first birthday unless she can secure true love’s kiss — a kiss that has never once worked. As Alyce and Aurora are drawn together, Alyce begins to suspect her own forbidden magic might hold the key to breaking a curse the whole kingdom believes is unbreakable.
But saving Aurora means defying everything Briar has built itself on, and the deeper Alyce falls, the more she must reckon with who she really is beneath the name they gave her. By the end, the choice she makes reshapes not just her own fate but the future of the kingdom — and sets up the duology’s dramatic second half, Misrule.
My Review
I went into Malice a little wary — villain retellings can lean so hard on aesthetic that they forget to give you a person to love. This one doesn’t make that mistake. Alyce is prickly and wounded and occasionally genuinely frightening, and I found myself completely on her side anyway, which is exactly the trick a book like this needs to pull off.
The romance is a slow burn in the truest sense. Walter takes her time letting Alyce and Aurora circle each other, and the payoff feels tender precisely because so much longing came first. The spice here is present but restrained — this reads as a crossover between YA and adult fantasy, so if you’re coming for explicit heat, adjust expectations. What you get instead is yearning, charged intimacy, and emotional weight.
If I have a quibble, it’s that the middle stretch meanders a little as the world-building settles in, and the ending swings hard into a divisive, high-drama cliffhanger that some readers adored and others found abrupt. I landed firmly in the “adored” camp — it recontextualizes everything — but be ready for it, and have Misrule on hand. This is a four-star read that comes very close to five on atmosphere and character alone.
Tropes & Themes at a Glance
| Element | Details |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Alyce (the Dark Grace) & Princess Aurora — F/F |
| Core tropes | Villain origin, enemies-to-lovers, forbidden love, morally grey heroine |
| Setting | Briar — a gilded, gothic fairy-tale kingdom |
| Heat level | 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Medium — open door but restrained |
| Series | Malice Duology #1 (followed by Misrule) |
| Content notes | Death, blood magic, cruelty/abuse, a major cliffhanger ending |
How Spicy Is Malice?
Heat rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Medium Spice. Malice sits at roughly a 3 out of 5 on the spice scale. It’s a fantasy romance first and an erotica never — the intimate scenes exist and matter, but they’re written with restraint and emotional focus rather than explicit detail. Because the book straddles the YA/adult line, the heat is more about slow-building tension and longing glances than open-door choreography. If steam is your priority, temper your expectations; if you want a romance that aches, this delivers.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you’re drawn to fairy-tale retellings, morally grey heroines, villain-origin stories, and slow-burn forbidden romance with a gothic atmosphere. Fans of Maleficent-style “root for the monster” narratives will be right at home.
You may want to skip it if: you need explicit, high-heat spice, you dislike cliffhanger endings, or you prefer fast-paced plots over immersive, character-driven world-building.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Malice be read as a standalone?
Not really. Malice is the first half of a duology and ends on a significant cliffhanger. You’ll want Misrule ready to go to get the full story.
Is Malice a true sapphic romance?
Yes. The central love story is unambiguously F/F — between Alyce, the outcast sorceress, and Aurora, the cursed princess. It’s a genuine sapphic retelling, not a subplot.
How steamy is it really?
Moderate. Around a 3 out of 5 — there’s intimacy and charged tension, but it’s restrained and emotionally driven rather than explicit, in keeping with its YA/adult crossover tone.
Do I need to know the Sleeping Beauty story first?
No. Familiarity with the fairy tale adds a fun layer of recognition, but Walter builds her world from scratch and explains everything you need as you go.
Is the pacing slow?
It’s a deliberate slow burn. The romance and world-building unfold gradually, especially through the middle, before the plot accelerates hard into the finale.
If You Loved Malice, Read These Next
If Alyce’s morally grey villain energy worked for you, browse the rest of our spicy sapphic fantasy book list for more of the same. For another sympathetic-monster romance with gorgeous prose, try A Dowry of Blood; if you want something warmer and steamier to balance out the gothic chill, Afterglow pairs tender kink with real emotional depth.
The Bottom Line
Malice is one of the most satisfying sapphic villain romances in modern fantasy — atmospheric, tender, and quietly subversive about who gets to be the hero of the story. It’s a slow burn that rewards patience and ends on a note that will send you straight to the sequel. A confident four stars, and an easy recommendation for anyone building a sapphic fantasy shelf. Check the latest price on Amazon →