Respect could build an empire. Trust could make it unbreakable. Love could make it last forever.
Blurb:
“A Modern Hades and Persephone Retelling
Persephone is the Goddess of Spring by title only. The truth is, since she was a little girl, flowers have shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hopes to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist.
Hades, God of the Dead, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favorite bets are rumored to be impossible.
After a chance encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead and the terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever.
The bet does more than expose Persephone’s failure as a goddess, however. As she struggles to sow the seeds of her freedom, love for the God of the Dead grows—and it’s forbidden.
REVIEW
I started getting into Greek mythology back in high school because the stories just fascinated me. There were so many of them and it seemed to me the ancient Greeks had an explanation for everything in the form of stories about the Gods from Mount Olympus and all the shenanigans they got into.
One of the Gods who fascinated me, who I didn't really like at the time, was Hades. I thought he was the bad guy and you're supposed to hate the bad guys...you know?! But the older I got the more I understood and respected Hades. Today he is by far my favourite of all the Greek Gods. Back then I thought: This is it... that's all the stories we're going to get about the Gods of Mount Olympus... Oh, how wrong I was. And I looove that I was.
Which brings me to this retelling of Hades and Persephone. We probably all know the story of how Hades kidnapped Persephone and brought her to the Underworld, where he tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds so she wouldn't be able to leave. In my mind she eats them willingly because she fell for Hades and his charm instantly (*cough cough* because that's what I would do...) and decided to stay of her own free will.
A Touch of Darkness starts with Persephone feeling a little rebellious against her mother, so she goes to Hades' club and unwillingly enters into a contract with him. To fullfill it, she has to create life in the Underworld.
Now, the biggest problem I have with this book is Persephone herself. On the one side I understand that she's been shelterd her entire life by her mother. It would make sense that she would be naive and inexperienced. I get that!
What I don't get is how she constantly judges Hades for his actions but doesn't listen to him when he tries to explain how things work. It annoyed me to no end how on the one hand she was falling for Hades but on the other hand she always found some kind of fault in him.
Persephone didn't seem like the brightest of heroines... I mean she had to create life in the Underworld and her best idea was to bring a garden shovel and some seeds... 🤦🏻♀️ If it was that easy to grow something in the Underworld somebody would've done it already... the old fashioned way.
Immediately after finishing this book, I started A Game of Fate, which is the same story but told from Hades' point of view and I have to admit that Hades definitely saved the story for me. Even in A Touch of Darkness, I liked him more than Persephone, but being inside his head for an entire book was so much more enjoyable.
In this world Scarlett St. Clair created, the Greek Gods are celebrities, who have businesses, wealth, status and fame. Some love the spotlight more than others.
I liked that Hades chose to stay in the dark, not showing his face, so nobody really knew what he looked like. That's how Persephone fell into the contract... she didn't know she was playing against the God of the Underworld.
I would have loved for it to stay that way. Why is it, that when the heroine comes along, the brooding hero, who has lived in the darkness his entire life, suddenly has to come into the light with the heroine?! It would have made much more sense for the God of the Underworld to stay in the dark and pull Persephone with him. She wasn't famous anyway, so it could have worked... at least in book one. Nobody even knows she's a Goddess because she never really had any powers.
Her powers are another thing... I got the feeling Persephone wanted others to solve her problems for her, instead of looking for a way to manifest her powers herself. Hades tries multiple times to push her in the right direction but she's too preoccupied with passing judgement or just acting like a brat to really listen to what he tells her.
All in all I'd rate this book a 3.5 stars mostly because of Hades and the world building, which I liked. Are there better retellings out there? Most definitely! But I found this one to be an enjoyable, spicy read with some great side characters like Hecate, Hermes and Thanatos. I'm pretty sure I'll wait to finish this series until all books are out, including the ones told from Hades' POV which I enjoyed much more.
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