Author: Willow Winters
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance
Format: Kindle (also comes in paperback and hardcover)
Kindle Unlimited: No
Series: Yes, Book 1 of 2
Price: $5.99 (Kindle)

Synopsis: {via Amazon}

There are two things I’ve always known:

Magic is real.

The Gods have no mercy for women like me.

I was born into power although what little I have is dying. Nonetheless, I’ve been protected all my life. There are myths and tales that say one day I will come to a fork in a long, long path. Either the light will take me or the dark. I never paid any mind to the whispers and warnings…

Until he crept into my window late at night.

Cloaked in darkness, silent as death. Every inch of me felt terror and yet I also felt something else. Something I’d never known.

He tasted like sin … and I loved it.

In a single moment, my entire world went dark and I was nothing more than a captive in the Underworld.

Nothing but his and suddenly all the lore brought a chill to my bones… even if he did light a fire in the most secret depths of me.

Prepare for a dark retelling of Hades and Persephone with spells and war and a love story that would change our world forevermore.

Review:

Wow, I'm not completely sure where to start with this one. I picked it up after seeing it advertised on my Facebook pretty much non-stop. I'm a sucker for good dark romance, so this book seemed like it fit my fancy. And, it might have done so a bit more if it was a modern retelling. Unfortunately, it's not and the book is so, soooooo slow. Everything happens so slowly with so much description that it's a little exhausting. I usually read a book in a day, maybe two, but this book took me three because the writing was so stiff that I couldn't stay interested.

Tropes:

🏺Greek Mythology

👑Hades & Persephone

🗡️Touch her and 💀

❤️‍🔥Slow burn

🖤Dark Romance

⛰️Cliffhanger

The Characters:

Hades is exactly as you would expect. Dark, broody, and hot. He's also a little bit cruel in a "it's for her own good" kind of way. Persephone is beautiful, curious, and self-absorbed, but also weak (not really her fault). There's not much more to say about either of them. 

The Plot:

This story is your standard Hades and Persephone retelling in most ways. It's set in ancient Greece, a small problem for me as you will see here in a minute. This book certainly has one thing going for it and that's the spice. This book's steamy and the sex scenes are hot. Otherwise, it's your standard Hades steals Persephone to the underworld and doesn't want to return her. Except in this case, she's facing a pretty serious betrayal that she doesn't know about because Hades never trusts her enough to tell her. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the story. He constantly tells her he can help her, but never actually does (maybe that's coming in book 2?). She falls in love with him in a sort of cringy captive falls for her captor kind of way, they even bond, and he still doesn't trust her to come back to him if he lets her go. He'd rather the whole damn universe be torn apart than, heaven forbid, trust her. 

The thing that bothered me more than anything was that at one point they celebrate Samhain. Samhain is a Gaelic holiday and wasn't celebrated in ancient Greece. Also, whenever she'd cast a spell she'd say "So Mote it Be" which is something modern wiccans use, but the origins for this phrase come from the Regius Manuscript, a Free Mason document dating to around 1390 AD . This is not something ancient Greeks would have said since ancient Greece dates from about 9000 BCE to 30 BCE.

I digress. Even though I found the writing a little bit stiff, the way Winters puts words together is beautiful. The story's pace is extremely slow. And... it ends on a cliffhanger with the next book expected next year.

The things I liked about this story include the mythology and the fact that she recognizes Hecate as a titan and not just a goddess. The mythology is almost spot on other than one place where she calls Hermes the god of war, which isn't accurate, but perhaps I misunderstood it? Otherwise, I always enjoy mythology and this was no exception. I also really liked some of the secondary characters such as Beatrice and Minox. Oh, and I liked that you saw a softer side of Hades with his dog, Cerberus. 

Rating: ❤❤❤ - Overall, this one was just okay. I might recommend it, if you enjoy Hades and Persephone retellings. Otherwise, skip this one. Or maybe just skip it until book 2 is out.