King of the Underworld – Got Meghan's Blog

Hello!

A part of me knew I would be back for another book review, it is much sooner than I was really expecting, but yet here we are anyways!

On Wednesday, I published the review of A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair. I was at the start of A Touch of Ruin, which is of course, is written in Persephone, the Goddess of Spring’s point of view, but I was on Instagram a day after I downloaded it onto my Kindle, I saw a comment on the author’s profile, and someone had shared that is might be smart to read ATOD and then switch to this book before going into ATOR and Scarlett said you could definitely read the entire story in that order, so that’s what I decided to do, which meant I returned the other and was able to switch to A Game of Fate, the first book written in Hades’ point of view.

Hades, God of the Underworld, is known for his inflexible rule, luxurious night clubs, and impossible bargains. Use to control, he is not prepared to discover the Fates have chosen his future wife and Queen—Persephone, Goddess of Spring.

Despite her attraction to the god, Persephone, an ambitious journalism student, is determined to expose Hades for his cruel and ruthless ways.

Hades finds himself faced with the impossible—proving his future bride wrong. Despite his efforts, there are forces who wish to keep the two apart and Hades comes to realize he will do anything for his forbidden love, even defy Fate.

taken from Goodreads.

For this book, I was sort of worried that it would replace what I thought of A Touch of Darkness, but from the moment it started, I knew this was an entirely different plot and story because it is focused on Hades, the King of the Underworld. If you had questions or theories of what was going on in Hades’ mind, which wasn’t as different as I had expected, like how much he thought about having sex with Persephone in almost every chapter wasn’t that big of a stretch but still, he thought about it a lot more than she did for him.

“Fucking Fates,” he mumbled,

Another part of me was very curious to having a whole book dedicated to seeing the worlds from Hades’ point of view. You don’t usually get to see it fully, when two characters share one book and I think that was what really sold me to this idea of having a separate series to divide up everyone’s true thoughts and ultimately see the character without much interaction from other people. You get to see his relationships with his brothers, enemies, and even Demeter too! I think one of my favorite things that I enjoyed about this book was you get to see the “friendships” Hades has made with fellow Gods and Goddess of the Underworld, like Hecate, the Goddess of Witchcraft and Hermes, the God of Trickery and Fuckery… 😉

Hades is a boss. I’d compare him to like any of the notorious mobsters in the history and beyond, but he seems like so chill with anyone that know him best when he completely switches from this immortal badass to laidback, homebody. You can also see this trait when it comes to The Fates too, although it is not as noticeable at first but you definitely know he absolutely cares for the ones that deserve it the most, and since The Fates are basically connecting him to Persephone, he really tries to breathe in and control his anger and frustrations for them and everybody else in the Underworld.

I am curious to what happens in the next few books, because apparently there are quite a lot in the series but I love learning more about these Greek gods and goddesses. Something that I am wondering about, is whether or not, if the author will write more like a series for Hecate and/or Hermes in the future. Honestly, I would rather be interested in learning more about Hecate than Hermes, but this two characters are really my favorites and I’d like to see how they got to be where they are now, you know? I mean, I don’t think Scarlett had originally wanted to write in both Persephone and Hades’ point of views so I’m just throwing it out there that it could be a nice novella, you know?

Have you read A Game Of Fate yet? Or are you waiting until you finished the series in Persephone’s side of events before you move on to this series?

Hello!

Man! It’s great to be back at writing these posts again.

Early December, I finally made the decision to stop reading for the rest of 2020, but two days before Christmas, I was on YouTube and this book and the rest of its series and they talked about what the story was about, and I just kind of thought “this is interesting” but I didn’t just get it right then and there mainly because I wanted to wait until the holidays were over to start on anything new and once I got the books I generally wanted to purchase, I was fine with waiting to get the first book, but then my gut was telling me to check to see if it’s available on Kindle Unlimited and there they were: the Hades x Persephone series and prequels too! So, I ended up getting just the first book in case I didn’t enjoy it off the bat, and I ended up finishing it in like two weeks!

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.

taken from Goodreads.

I didn’t really know what the series was about before putting it on my Kindle. I just kind of saw the cover on YouTube and was like, “oh, you are gorgeous! Gimme!” and really felt the need to get it. You also have to remember that I already had a small stack of books to keep me afloat for a while but I chose to get this one instead. A part of me feels bad but yet I was thrilled seeing on KU that I just gave in and didn’t bother to look back. I mean, I don’t regret it one bit because it was everything that I wanted it to be and more, so obviously after I get done writing this review, I’m diving deep into the second book!

When I was younger, I already had a growing obsession on Ancient Egypt and its mythology, but my only source to learn more about Greek mythology was the Disney version. It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school that I realized that a lot of information that they gave us kids was pretty wrong, such as Hera, the “mother” of Hercules is definitely untrue. In the research we did, it was actually said that Hera had a strong hatred for Hercules! Unfortunately we were only allowed to select few of Greek gods and goddesses, and after that, I kind of lost the interest to learn about their mythology altogether. I had already decided on this before I found these books but it really shocked me on how much Disney influenced me–this book is about Hades and all throughout the damn book my mind kept showing me Cheyenne Jackson from “Hades” on Descendants 3 film and everytime we were in the Underworld, I would have James Woods, who voiced the animated version of Hades in 1995 in my head during some of the very erotic scenes! Totally not recommended by the way.

Respect could build an empire. Trust could make it unbreakable. Love could make it last forever.

I do want to point out that while I was wrestling with my version of Hades, I have never particularity loved the name Persephone until now and even though she is described as a platinum blonde in the story, I kept seeing her with strawberry-blonde hair instead. The same goes with her mother Demeter too! So, my whole system was a bit out of wack but I made it happen anyways. I definitely saw myself quickly becoming a bit of a fan of Persephone. I think everything that is said to her towards the end is completely true om how I viewed her in the start of the book. I think she is the one, who made me want to continue reading, especially when I should be in bed asleep, but I really wanted to know how everything ended for her, not much about Hades though.

The story itself was, very intense from start to finish and I feel that’s the main reason why I was able to read it so quickly, because you didn’t have that much time in between chapters to basically refresh yourself from a certain scene and even though I loved reading at that speed, it was sometimes too much for me and I had to take many breaks throughout important moments. Thankfully, everything was described in almost perfect detail so I was able to map out everything from both the Upperworld and the Underworld. The only place I had some difficulty building in my mind was the glasshouse, everything else was pretty easy structurally and it was a good thing too because it evened out my outlook on the characters and the events taking place.

There is a chance that by the time this post is published that I have probably finished with “A Game Of Fate” which is in the point of view of Hades, by the time this post goes up.. I was on Scarlett’s Instagram page the other day and someone had made the comment that it is better to read it like this and just continue to switch from their POVs. However, if you just want to stick to Persephone’s version of events, that’s totally up to you.

So, have you read “A Touch of Darkness” yet? If you have, when did you start to explore the second series? For those who have read retellings like this, how do you turn off those childhood memories basically and create newer versions of these mythological gods and goddess?