By the Sword: A World Conquest Isekai Audiobook By J. V. Simms cover art

By the Sword: A World Conquest Isekai

Empress, Book 2

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

By the Sword: A World Conquest Isekai

By: J. V. Simms
Narrated by: Hollie Jackson
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $49.90

Buy for $49.90

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

In this follow-up to the hit isekai, a villain continues to find her power—and develop her sadism—even as she's haunted by her ex-love.

Seventeen years after her rebirth into a magical medieval world, Everly Vae Balsar, the Empress, has made it. With her exceptionally potent earth magic and powers of spiritual manipulation, she stands poised to conquer a kingdom that lives in fear of her and her dangerous servants: Carter the goblin assassin, the marauding General Grail, and her elementals, the sadistic Eris and ditzy Titania. She's a villain and proud of it.

Well, she's not a fan of cannibalistic monsters. Villainy is her domain, not the presumptuous Mister Whisper's. But at the moment, Everly is experiencing something she's never felt before: genuine regret over killing someone. Specifically, her mage maybe-love Fenneth.

As she reconnects with her conniving father and impetuous sister and continues to grow her power, Everly's schemes slowly become more complex. But she's still haunted by her actions—and maybe by Fenneth as well . . .

The second 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 Action & Adventure Epic Fantasy Humorous Paranormal Paranormal & Urban Magic Royalty
Interesting Villain Perspective • Entertaining Character Dynamics • Refreshing Villain Protagonist • Ambitious Plot Ideas
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
same stuff as the first, very enjoyable. only down side would be the 1 1/2-2 hours at the end that set up the next book and has an extended story made by Tatiana. Not saying I didnt like the story but it felt like padding to increase the Length of time shown on audible.

If you liked the first book you'll like this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Tons of new ideas and characters, but definitely felt more like episodic events brought up and resolved in tv-show like installments, instead of one big escalating adventure like the first novel.

Also, Asher SUCKS. Please god let future segments with her be less brain-meltingly repetitive and uninteresting.

And the new “Big Good” looming threat seems to be really dragging their feet, just a minor story issue, but they really could have been doing what they set out to do instead of playing around all book.

Love the new and storylines, but…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Seriously addicted to this story and Everly! She's just way too entertaining and the way the narrator brings her to life is just perfect!! I can't wait to see how the story evolves and im already dying for the next audiobook!!

Can't get enough!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Pretty much stop listening to it with four hours left. Started out strong. Too bad.

Meh. Starting to get boring halfway through.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
While entertaining, the story tends to pointlessly wander onto tangents that do nothing to advance the plot. If your looking for basic amusement it's fine, if you want to listen to an actual story with advancement look somewhere else.

lacks focus

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A power fantasy in a fantasy world from the more exciting pont of view.

Delightful and Evil

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Started out as good as the first book and is still enjoyable. However, the author has the characters go off on so many tangents that the storyline basically doesn't progress at all. This is fine in doses to lengthen series and get more books in and all. i get it... but too much is too much. The book needs to make some progress.

Too much dialogue between the clones. That whole section was just a waste of time.

needs to get back on track

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
TLDR: I recommend the Salvos series instead - although she's more of a chaotic anti-hero, where as Everly is a true chaotic, psychotic villain (which I actually like about the series as it is refreshing). The author was more ambitious his scope... with several plotlines and more characters, but really fumbles the execution.

The first book was pretty decent for the genre. However, this book really could have used an editor to help the author organize the the story arcs and characterization and pacing - it was the last few chapters that pulled the book out me giving it one-star. The author clearly was trying to be more ambitious, with multiple plotlines and story arcs and at a high-level I thought they were decent ideas... but the execution of those ideas was extremely inconsistent.

The books suffers from pacing issue with basically nothing happening in the first half and there being an entire chapter or two of the MC having a long random debate with herself that had as many nerd pop culture reference as Ready Player One. I mean I got basically of the references, so I don't mind them in general as a sort of flavor-text and Deadpool-like witty banter... but not when they were didn't advance the plotline, weren't funny, and you culd have deleted the entire chapter or two without missing. a beat on the rest of the story. Then the book gets decent in the third quarter of the book... and then over-corrects, with plotlines that literally could have had an entire separate book to explore, but was resolved "off-camera" between chapters.

The side characters are noticeable limited in depth, with many of them almost being interchangeable and having overly similar dialogue styles (to be fair John Scalzi, who I like, also tends to have all his character either be snarky misathropes, pompous assholes, or random template people reacting to the first two types - and I'm ok with that). Annoyingly, the author was so interested in exploring some story ideas, that he's basically willing to retcon characters between book 1 and 2 (and sometimes between the early and later chapters) just to fit into his vignettes and ideas. Even the general theme of the series is thrown for a huge curve... only to bring itself right back to where it started in the end (making the detour feel somewhat pointless).

Extremely uneven pacing and inconsistent narrative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I can't wait for the next entry. Five stars all around. I highly recommend it to anyone!

I loved it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
honestly I don't know why I came to read the second book. The first one was like watching me Trainwreck filled with nuclear waste crash into an orphanage. meanwhile people are introduced who might be able to stop that train but instead they're either corrupted or crushed in its path.

The second book is much like the first. still fascinating to watch but I feel dirty for having done so. The only problem I have with the story is that the main characters behavior is inhuman. Good luck!!!

still a book about reprehensible character

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews