Yesterday's Heroes

Consortium of Chaos #1

by Elizabeth Gannon

High atop the Fortress of Liberty... The life of a super-hero is not all it’s cracked up to be. Just ask Wyatt Ferral, one of the city’s cape-wearing favorite sons. He knows that most of his "heroic” coworkers are actually terrible people. He’s ready to topple the whole organization.

Meanwhile at the Consortium of Chaos… The life of a super-villain is a blast, just ask the super-villainess known as “Harlot.” Just because you’re dedicated to evil doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun, right? When Wyatt Ferral walks into the Consortium’s headquarters, she’s intrigued. Can the handsome hero help her villainous organization finally succeed in taking over the city?

(M/F, HEA, no cheating, grumpy/sunshine, antihero romance, workplace romance, is part of a series but the romance is self-contained and can be read as a standalone.)

Genres: Superheroes, Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal, Enemies To Lovers, Humor, Fantasy Romance

ebook

First published July 29, 2012

About the author

Overeducated and underemployed, Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) Gannon lives in Florida with her sister Cassandra Gannon (who is also an author) She enjoys romance novels, comic books, and soap operas.

She has always been the type of person who genuinely votes for the bad guys in movies, TV and video games, and usually can’t stand the hero. Even as a child all of her Barbies were always criminals and/or ninja assassins, but their hair still looked perfect.

She has a very spoiled dog, and is lorded over by the world's most evil cat.

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yesterday's Heroes is one of those very rare books I decided to read with my eyes. Mostly because that was the only option! Somebody really has to tell the Gannon sisters about audio!!! It is the first book I've read with my eyes in over a year (not counting a novella a few months back) and easily the longest in length I've committed to in the last 3 to 4 years. The sad fact is my eyes just are not up to sustained periods of actual reading any more and if I've learned one thing over the years it is that I've zero self-control when it comes to being sucked into a good story. The good news is that this book was worth my time. I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Gannon's sister Cassandra's books so felt like it was time I gave one of hers a go since she seemed like she wrote a similar sort of romantic comedy style tale. The other thing that drew me to this book was the fact that it was a superhero/villain romance tale. I do love a good superhero tale in general and definitely feel the superpowered romance subgenre is way to niche for my liking. We need more books like this!

The story was a ton of fun. Wyatt Ferral was once one of the most respected superheroes in the city and part of the worlds top superhero team. That ended abruptly due to a tragic incident that got caught on camera and broadcast live on national TV. After disappearing from the public eye for a year Wyatt resurfaces and decides to make a go at being a supervillain! Which leads him to try join the Consortium of Chaos. That is great news for supervillain Harlot, daughter of the CoC leader, because she has had a massive crush on Wyatt for years! Now she just has to convince her villainous family and friends not to kill Wyatt on sight so she has her chance to finally spend some time with him.

The story really was compelling and fun. It had a great mix of romance, comedy, and drama. Wyatt, or Fabricator as he was known by publicly, was basically a Green Lantern style superhero and had a ton of cool superpowers. Harlot was just a regular human but she was the cities top escape artist and a high level thief so she had plenty to offer despite her lack of superpowers. The duo were also just super easy to like both as people and as a couple. Wyatt only joined the CoC to utilize their manpower to help him in his vendetta against the cities Heroes but he cannot help but fall for Harlot once he gets to know her and learns that perhaps the CoC has more to offer him than his life as a hero ever did. Harlot was a pretty awesome characters and her upbeat optimism basically held the crazy bunch at the CoC together. Plus her obsession with Fabricator was hilarious and pretty well known by every one long before he ever pitched up on their doorstep. It made for a fun story and an enjoyable romance.

If I was surprised by anything in the story it was the fact that the story held a darker edge to it than anything that is found in Cassandra Gannon's romances tales. It soon became apparent that the heroes were not quite as heroic as they liked to appear in public and that Wyatt's own backstory was pretty dark. It gave the story an edge and definitely helped add a bit of tension to the tale. The good thing is that we still got plenty of humour and plenty of romance and cute emotional moments so the balance of the story was pretty good.

The other thing this book did well was introduce us to a whole bunch of other fun characters. It bodes well for the rest of the series as I'm already interested in reading the stories of a few of the more significant secondary characters we got introduced to in this one.

All in all this was just the story of book I was hoping it would be when I picked it up. I think Cassandra Gannon has a more engaging writing style than Elizabeth Gannon but this was still a very readable and engaging story. It is fair to say I'm a fan of both sisters as they write fun romantic comedy stories!

Rating: 4.5 stars.

Reread Updates: Just as fun the second time around.

[boogenhagen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The editing isn't great on these, but I don't care. I fell off my chair laughing and the romance is pretty good too.

[Aly is so frigging bored · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would have been so much better if a content editor would have gone through it. There are some parts that are superfluous.

[Bar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf 8%

I had such hopes for this series... I really expected a funny but well-written story with classic superheroverse villains, but i guess when you want to dnf at 3% and it's not even the end of prologue yet... It's a bad book sign.

My first experience with Elizabeth Gannon's writing was with CoC short story featured in one of the worst anthologies i have ever seen, and it was actually the best story in it. It doesn't change the fact that the writing was silly and annoying, so it was the first warning.

The actual CoC book was so much worse. I have no desire to give it another chance.

[Coyora Dokusho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read (2) times

June 20, 2014:

Okay, the first thing you gotta understand... is that this book isn't edited... at all. I think somebody ran it through the spell checker and just hit "replace" on everything. Stuff like mixed pronouns, mixed verb tenses and words that just aren't supposed to be there - but are spelled correctly, by God! **HOWEVER!!!** this in-any-other-situation glaring defect was but a slight distraction from the vast awesomeness that is this book!!

Another problem I have is the monologuing, ye gods... the monologuing!!!! But since, this is a superhero/villain book, in the end I just found it charming (acceptance is the answer!) and it was so HILARIOUS, thus all is forgiven.

characters = fantastic

plot = interesting

I LAUGHED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!

September 6, 2014:

READING THEM ALL AGAIN! BECAUSE OF THE AWESOME!

Two typos present in every book: evidentially instead of evidently. passed (him) instead of *past* (him). Evidentially is like "according to the evidence"; Evidently is like "apparently"; I pretty sure you mean evidently. There is a difference between "You'll never get past me!" and "You passed me in the race!" - you keep using *passed* in the first situation, when it should be *past*.

There's also lots of situations where the pronouns don't match the gender of the antecedent or a pronoun is used when a more clearly identifying noun should be because I can't tell who the pronoun is referring to.

I really love this book. The typos are less irritating the second time around because I'VE LEARNED TO EXPECT THEM. But seriously, contact me if you're gonna release a second version, because I love them enough that I'm willing to perform a SINGLE EDITING OF ONE BOOK - gratis.

[Grace*dnfing books since 2022* · Rating 1 out of 5]

Has ANYONE here ever READ Anne of Green Gables to COMPLETION? Or even RARER, Emily of New Moon? I'm talking in particular about the part where EMILY, an ASPIRING writer gets ADVICE from her writing teacher who tells her REPEATEDLY, then ECHOES it in his final, deathly moments—and that advice is to “beware the italics.”

If you GOOGLE this, it'll SHOW up!

BACK THEN I never UNDERSTOOD this advice, but now I DO!

(now I shall write like a normal human being:)

That advice means for authors to quit emphasizing every other word randomly. Something Elizabeth Gannon never learned and really needs to do so, ASAP, for the sake of seizure-prone readers. Now I am not prone to seizures, but I felt an imminent heart attack coming on, trying to extrapolate WHAT was happening when every other word was emphasized! This, combined with an endless amount of…well…ellipses…that…were…littered…in…the…paragraphs made my pupils dilate, and not in a sexy, in heat sort of way, but in a concussed type of way.

In any event, DNF until I get prescribed some anti-seizure medication.

[Gena · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I read two books by this author so thought I'd give this a try. But oh my goodness, the most boring beginning ever. I really tried and kept slogging but eventually gave up. The author is introducing the characters, but instead of scenes that let us interact with them and get to know them the hero reads out their cvs at a meeting (his first after being in the building for a couple hours). And these cvs are not short so this goes on for many pages. Then Harlot, sigh. If you like the naive, all bad guys are just good guys inside and life is wonderful type then you might enjoy this book. If you're like me and wish she was in touch with reality just a little then you won't.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

an entertaining ride but long nonetheless

[Bisquit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the perfect example of why sometimes, just sometimes you should either get an editor or shoot the old one. Just kidding, maiming is enough.

"Yesterday's Heroes" was intriguing and hilarious. It also severly lacked a proper, brutal editing hand to
a) mercilessly cut this book down from its what, measly 550~ pages. Let's be honest, your standard revenge-plot (even when involving twists or red herrings) gets by with HALF. While I do adore the ramblings of certain evil characters, you could have cut those by half, compressing it and making it even more hilarious. Just saying. Too much.
b) even more mercilessly erase some characters. I do like my characters worthy of being remembered, but being introduced to the whole batch of the villain character set was just TOO MUCH. (Just measly 20+ characters! But of course I remember them all! I mean, who wouldn't? Wait, what do you mean, who is Inferno? Ahhhmm... that chick there? Who later appears and has a rather epic scene but who I can't even remember ever being introduced?) I don't care how awesome they are, how funny, hilarious, how much thought was put in them - if I forget them and don't miss out at all, they apparently weren't needed for the story anyway. Also, the Lizard and the Bird could have been easily compressed into one character. What the "Narrator" was there for, no idea, he was just irritating to read.
c) properly edit out some typos. Frankly, I don't care much about typos. However, it might kill the reading flow a bit (meaning a lot) if there's always things like"he" does something that's actually "she" doing. The words are correct, but it's usually one letter wrong, making it another word completely. I've never seen such distracting, annoying typos ever in my whole reading experience. (Counting only the professional ones) Gratulations, book! That's not something you should be proud of.

But, but, there were good points! And obviously there were, or I would have stopped reading this really not long at all book (550 PAGES!)! This book would ordinarily get 5 stars, but due to it being a troll and only occasionally giving me glimpses of how awesome it truly could be, just not delivering it, it gets 4 stars. Seriously. The scene with Traitor? Best 5 pages of the book. Now that I think about it, he could have been erased, too, due to not being important to the story all that much - naw. Keep the guy, he's such a hilarious disloyal bastard.
The characters - while too many to talk about - are well crafted, well thought out with a ton of personality. I do recommend reading between the lines a lot, as frankly most of those bastards are self-lying non-thrustworthy narrators. It's really not a book for kids, as it does have a couple of sex scenes. I'd give it the tag "New Adult" or "Adult". Also, I absolutely loved the different Point of Views. Well done, author, well done. Every point of view had a distinct, clear voice and made me love & understand the character a bit more. I repeat: Excellent job there.
Some characters (Holly!) reminded me of other characters (Harley Quinn! In the winter edition!), but otherwise I thought the whole bunch was (more or less) interesting. If I didn't forget about them due to never appearing again, that is. (I never got the character "Narrator" though and frankly, I don't know enough about him to care.)
The plot itself included a bit of a new approach of taking down the other side, but overall the plot wasn't worth writing home about. No thrilling twists (the one that did exist could have also not existed at all, wouldn't have changed the story at all).

The characters and actions itself were what made this book fun. By this point, I either have your interest for this book or not. So now, shall we introduce the main characters to seal the deal?
- Let' start with Harlot: Your girl next door! If she were evil. But not really evil, just loving her evil friends and family. So actually a good girl with a big grey questionable ethical compass. Also a stalker.
- Next is Wyatt: Your emo boy. If he were raised as a superhero by very, very questionable methods by very, very psychotic behaving superhero parents. Also, when he snaps, he gets truly awesome. Otherwise reverts back to emo boy. But oh, when he does snap <3 Bloodthirsty Wyatt is fun. And no, I never want bloodthirsty Wyatt around in real life.
- Traitor: Easily best character of the book. The name is program, people!

Ah, and also, big plus: The book wasn't sexist or otherwise questionable. Our big girls never put up with shit from the other characters, they gave back as much as they got, and did as they wanted. I like something like that. All in all, I recommend it to superhero lovers! Unless you detest typos, then I guess you should maybe consider staying away from this one.

/Actually, don't start maiming people for real, folks! That was just a joke. Just saying.

[Ruby Ridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

A good concept but, sorry, ruined by being overlong, hard to follow and boring.
The first third of the book read like a laundry list, the camaraderie of the villains is nice but then it degenerates into a really confusing ending.
Far too many characters all with at least two names to keep track of. Almost DNFed it but got to the end (with some skimming)

[Alexys · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely, mind-numbingly, unreadable. Chapter 3 is just 45 pages of poor character introductions. Every character has to TALK IN ALL CAPS to emphasize how quirky and silly they are. This could've been a great book, I loved the premise but it was just not well executed. Very dissapointing.

[Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. A worthy reread! The romance is not as fleshed out as some of the later books but it’s great backstory and world building for the rest of the series (Son of Sun and Sand and The Only Fish in the Sea are GREAT)

[Kelspar · Rating 3 out of 5]

:(

Both extremely overcooked and totally unbaked. Like a cake that is burnt to a crisp but still raw inside.

This was a struggle to read. Seriously, it was extremely difficult. I had to concentrate and found myself re-reading, to even understand what was being written or going on in the story. It felt like I read for hours upon hour only to be 30% of the way in. And I felt those hours, again this was a bizarrely difficult read?

It also just did not work. It takes really good, clever and unique writing for books like this to be successful. What I mean is, books that play with very different subject tones. The writing needs to be done in a way that supports both tones, not just one. In this book it was: Hahaha murder! Hahaha unicorns and rainbows! Hahaha weapons of mass destruction! The writing was just too lacking for these tonal shifts to work on the same page/ in the same conversation. It was jarring and felt juvenile and tasteless.

I am just so confused. I feel exhausted, like I read a 2,000 paged textbook for school or something. Your brain shouldn't be tired after reading a novel lol and I'm left conflicted, I want to know what happens with the other villains but I can't see myself reading and suffering through these and they only get longer!!! One of them is over 650 pages! What the fuck? Lol 😭

[lindsay paige palermo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kicks off an exciting series that's an absolute blast! If you're a fan of "The Boys" TV series but crave a lighter, slice-of-life take, buckle up because this book is right up your alley. Meet Wyatt Ferral, our disillusioned ex-top hero turned villain who constantly questions the absurdities of hero and villain society. On the flip side, we have Harlot, our fearless female lead, who embodies the superhero fan in all of us. Their banter and exchanges are downright hilarious, and their romance sizzles on the page. But here's the real gem of the story—the background characters steal the show and bring the world to life. Every interaction is dripping with humor and sarcasm, making this book an absolute joyride from start to finish. Look no further if you're looking for a fun read with tons of romance and laughs! You'll have to overlook some pacing and copy-editing issues, but this story and its characters are worth it.

[Mandy McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so i did like this book but i didn't love it. I found it was a bit long winded at times and served more as an introduction to the Consortium of Chaos than a story focused on Wyatt and Harlot.

I really enjoyd Harlots interactions with her "family" and enjoyed the introductions of these colourful characters and am definatly looking forward to reading their books.

As a character i thought Wyatt was a bit 2 dimensional and a bit dull. I didn't feel like there was much chemistry between him and Harlot and there hook up scenes seemed more like a device to move there relationship along and less like a natural progression of a relationship.

I loved the arguments between the consortium at their meeting and can't decide if i'm more excited for Tyrants book or Cynics.

[S89L5 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to love this.

The concept is interesting, some parts were funny, but this book needs —and I mean N.E.E.D.S.— a good editor. Or an editor, period.
There is so much unimportant fluff that does not advance the story. It's tedious to read 10 consecutive info sheets on different villains. I love long reads, but it needs to be entertaining and not go on wild tangents that don't make much sense within the plot.
This book also misses one of the golden rules of writing: Show, don't tell.

[Jessica]

No rating because it just wasn't my thing. I found Cassandra Gannon's books very entertaining, and hoped for the same snark, humor, and insanity. This had all the ingredients with a former superhero turned supervillain, capers, and a family of weirdos, but gosh, it needs an edit so badly. It is 2-3x as long as it needed to be, and really suffered as a result. I would be happy to read more of this style but with a strong editor.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. The premise seemed so promising but the pacing was slow. Too many side characters whose actions did not progress the plot.

Wyatt was a jerk too far. Didn’t want to get involved with the villains but also happy to sleep with one. At times he was flat out rude to Harlot and she didn’t call him out on it.

Harlot had the Harley Quinn chaotic happy style and that was fun for a few pages but then started to border in delusional

[Adélie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book but it just didn’t do it for me. The writing style and pace made it very difficult for me to remain engaged. I wasn’t a big fan of the characters either. I was also expecting humour but it just felt forced at times. The plot felt like it was all over the place. The introduction of characters too felt a bit messy. I don’t really know how to describe it other than it felt messy.

[Amber]

DnF @ 35%

not for me. i love superheros and villains and thought, sure why not? except this feels like rabid fantasy that is not cohesive in any real way. the plot is all over the place. the first interaction between MMC and FMC has him drooling over her just to make really gross comments about how she looks like 'she can take on a whole football team.' gross. It doesn't get better and at 35% I've had enough.

[Linda Busanic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book

I love finding new authors! Especially ones who have written many books. Loved this story! Great characters, interesting situations. Funny, different. Try it and try Cassandra Gannon too!

[Jack-Jack · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was boring, and the constant, bizarre emphasis on random WORDS made the writing feel disjointed. The inner monologue was full of odd juxtapositions and nonsensical tangents that just didn’t add up.

[Sorhija · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still laughing :)

[Sony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Too many characters introduced though, I understand that they are introducing an entird organization to the readers but it still feels excessive.

[Jas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very original plot but unnecessarily long.

[Mayi Vasquez · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a funny and ok book (as in general), but the monologues were waaaaay too long and difficult to read. I felt it was repetitive as well. Not sure if I'll give the second volume a chance.

[Faith Hirschi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but it really dragged. Her newer on “Love Vs the Beast” is 100x better.
But I felt like this one was written for her and not for an audience. There were a million characters and way too much dialogue. It was funny but then reading the same thing over and over again got boring and annoying.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @5%. This book is 3rd person POV which I struggle with, but the writing style was also strange.

[Raygun ∆ Gothic · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was unusually bad AND long. Also, if Continuum never comes back from somewhere totally fine, nobody needs to tell me about it. T.T Too sad for a book this annoying.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny but also kind of a bummer

Had a lot of potential but just never reached it. Interesting overall idea for a book though! Could have been shorter.