He was supposed to be a myth.
But from the moment I crossed the River Styx and fell under his dark spell…he was, quite simply, mine.*A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Hades and Persephone that’s as sinful as it is sweet.*
Society darling Persephone Dimitriou plans to flee the ultra-modern city of Olympus and start over far from the backstabbing politics of the Thirteen Houses. But all that’s ripped away when her mother ambushes her with an engagement to Zeus, the dangerous power behind their glittering city’s dark facade.
With no options left, Persephone flees to the forbidden undercity and makes a devil’s bargain with a man she once believed a myth…a man who awakens her to a world she never knew existed.
Hades has spent his life in the shadows, and he has no intention of stepping into the light. But when he finds that Persephone can offer a little slice of the revenge he’s spent years craving, it’s all the excuse he needs to help her—for a price. Yet every breathless night spent tangled together has given Hades a taste for Persephone, and he’ll go to war with Olympus itself to keep her close…
As the covercopy reads – this is a retelling of Hades and Persephone. I think it was supposed to be urban fantasy. However, I was left at a loss for much of any magic save for the power right around the River Styx. Persephone had no magic, and neither did Hades or any of the other 13 heads of Olympus. It left me wondering at my expectations. I had hoped for fireballs and summoned undead as part of the battle climax.
The story itself, once you tamp down that expectation, was decent. The editing was clean enough to not be a disruption. The world build was decent, though there could have been more fleshing out of the Lower City. I say that because there was a bit of a cliff hanger on The Artist who painted the pieces over business doors. Maybe it’s in one of the next books. That’s probably going to be the key to this story feeling unfinished – there are more books after. I’m still kind of convinced that about three extra chapters worth of content would have helped to wrap up the questions I had about the structure of the story and the character interactions themselves.
This is Bondage-Sub on screen spice. And it starts pretty early into the book. The fact that the characters openly discuss what they want out of the relationship up front was refreshing. I also appreciated how it went from a need to control their lives to developing feelings of love. Most of the time romance novels give the thinnest veiling of love first, lust second, but there’s never enough time to actually develop the love in the midst of the lust. The pacing for that character development was thought out and felt genuine.
It’s definitely in the adult content category. There are some nods to lgbtq+ relationships in past encounters for both main characters, but this particular interaction set up is het. It does feel like the next two books in the series might be able to play more with relationship variety.
The thing is, it makes for a good stand alone. I don’t have a lot of motivation to pick up the next book just to answer a couple of nagging questions. Also, starting a series off with BS makes it hard to go back to vanilla interactions which tends instead to have the BDSM become more prominent and that can actually become a bit much if it’s not played well. I might come back to the other two books when I get up the courage to find out which direction the writer ended up taking.
Would I suggest it?
I think so. I read it during my weekend trip to Hamburg. It made for a decent read on my Kobo. I rather like reading and writing spice, but I don’t like advertising in public. So, having this one as an e-copy was rather nice. I would call it a beach read or a vacation read. It doesn’t ask you to devote a lot of thought or emotions into it, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Those types of books make for the best relaxation reads.
