A Reader's Guide to Books and Reviews

Title: Persephone (Daughters of Zeus #1)
Author: Kaitlin Bevis
Format: Epub
Rating: 4/5
Status: Finished
Reading Date: July 9, 2018 to July 10, 2018
Book Summary: One day Persephone is an ordinary high school senior working at her mom’s flower shop in Athens, Georgia. The next she’s fighting off Boreas, the brutal god of Winter, and learning that she’s a bonafide goddess—a rare daughter of the now-dead Zeus. Her goddess mom whisks her off to the Underworld to hide until Spring.

There she finds herself under the protection of handsome Hades, the god of the dead, and she’s automatically married to him. It’s the only way he can keep her safe. Older, wiser, and far more powerful than she, Hades isn’t interested in becoming her lover, at least not anytime soon. But every time he rescues her from another of Zeus’s schemes, they fall in love a little more. Will Hades ever admit his feelings for her?

Can she escape the grasp of her powerful dad’s minions? The Underworld is a very cool place, but is it worth giving up her life in the realm of the living? Her goddess powers are developing some serious, kick-butt potential. She’s going to fight back.
Book Review: This book has been on my "to be read" list forever and I finally pushed this book up to the front of the list. Mainly because I have always loved any retellings of the Hades and Persephone myth. Okay, not all of the retellings out there have been worth the pick up and some have really fell short of their retellings but I had a lot of high hope for this one.

In this book, Persephone is living a pretty mortal life. Her mother runs a flower shop business and her friend is Melissa. She really has no idea that she is a goddess. This all changes when she catches the eye of Boreas, the brutal God of Winter. Persephone is taken down into the Underworld where she finds herself "married" to Hades, God of the Underworld. Stuck in the Underworld with Hades, Persephone finds herself falling in love with him with passing day. Now she will have to fight off her father's minions and deal with her growing abilities. Will Persephone be able to do it?

For once, I have to say that the heroine of this story did not annoy me as they have been doing in the past. I actually found her likeable. Color me completely surprised by this. Persephone is a teenager whom is currently enjoying her quiet life. Yet things start to get weird for her. People act different around her, she gets a phone number from a rockstar, and on top of all that, her mother tells her that she is a goddess. Of course, Persephone is skeptical, believing that her mother has gone over the deep end of the pool over this but her opinion begins to change when she finds herself down in the Underworld below and now the "bride" to the God of the Underworld, Hades. Persephone has a lot to take in but despite all of this, she finds herself enjoying the company below. Persephone's character grows from being skeptical to wanting to learn how to use her powers and understand them.

Hades is someone quite different. Although he is Persephone's uncle (yes, yes Mythology is riddled with incest) but here in this book, they don't look at family ties. In fact, they don't seem to really exist in this world. So here it is safe without the thought of incest. Contrary to what popular culture has said of him, Hades has neither flame for hair nor is evil. In fact, it seems to be the other way around: he is a nice guy and seems to be quite the fair ruler to this Underworld kingdom. You can see that he grows to care for Persephone and even love her as their relationship develops.

As for the other secondary cast of characters, they are not one-dimension. There is some depth to them and they can become quite likeable to the reader. Even the Underworld is something different. Not the dark, dank world we are used to reading about but a world filled with stores, Starbucks, and other places.

All in all, I was surprised about liking this book. I quite enjoyed it actually and I am quite looking forward to reading the next book in this series.