Book Review: “A Touch Of Ruin” by Scarlett St. Clair

Hello!

Well, I am back with my third review of a Scarlett St. Clair book.

If you didn’t know I have already read A Touch Of Darkness written with Persephone, as the main focus, and A Game Of Fate told in Hades’ point of view of the same plot. This one continues Persephone’s story following the events at the end of both books. Scarlett is releasing A Touch Of Malice in May 2021 and A Game Of Retribution sometime next winter. I know it seems very confusing but that’s just how I read both series and will as the rest of the books are released.

I really tired during the last week of January to change up what was next on my list but I couldn’t leave it alone and honestly, I think it was the best thing I could have done because now I can officially move on from the story of Hades and Persephone and read other genres, like nonfiction, and be fully committed to it.

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Persephone’s relationship with Hades has gone public and the resulting media storm disrupts her normal life and threatens to expose her as the Goddess of Spring.

Hades, God of the Dead, is burdened by a hellish past that everyone’s eager to expose in an effort to warn Persephone away.

Things only get worse when a horrible tragedy leaves Persephone’s heart in ruin and Hades refusing to help. Desperate, she takes matters into her own hands, striking bargains with severe consequences.

Faced with a side of Hades she never knew and crushing loss, Persephone wonders if she can truly become Hades’ queen.

taken from Goodreads.

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I think the best way to describe this story is, it was a roller coaster of different emotions. I was proud, envious, in love, sad, and God help me, aroused throughout much of the book. Sorry to any family members out there who are reading this post and wishing I hadn’t shared that little tebibit.

“I just need a mental health day,” Persephone said.

Anyways…

There are a lot of things in this story. We talk about the ultimatum that Demitri gave her in the beginning, the ins and outs of Apollo and Sybil’s relationship, how the Goddess of Spring is dealing with her new found powers, and eventually we get on to Lexa. On top of all of this, we have the new relationship with Hades and the prospect of becoming his wife and eventually Queen of the Underworld.

As much as I saw Persephone as a strong woman in the first book, I didn’t really see her like that here. There are a few parts where she comes out like a total badass, but I find with this one, she is more whiny than anything else. Whenever she was posed with going back and forth between the Underworld and Upperworld, you as the reader could clearly see her juggle more than she could really handle and even though I admired her for wanting to being present in both worlds with her friends she never really found a way to find a steady solution until the end of it. Of course, now that I mention it on here, that was probably the point of the whole story in the first place.

Despite the fact that the story is stretched out in three parts, every single chapter had a lot of information that I am still trying to digest because I know the next book is going to be even more difficult. I am looking forward to checking it out but I am also in need to meditate with Hecate as well or hang out with Hermes, either one would be a blessing in disguise!

Have you read this series yet? What were your thoughts on this installment of the saga of Hades x Persephone? Were your emotions all over the place like mine?

Book Review: “A Game Of Fate” by Scarlett St. Clair

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.

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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.

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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?

Book Review: “A Touch of Darkness” by Scarlett St. Clair

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!

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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.

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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?

2020 RECAP | Trial & Error

Hello!

2020 has been a very complexed year. For a lot of people, it’s been one of the worst ones whereas I think it’s been a very successful year. I have had bad days and unsavory moments happen within the year but overall it’s been pretty good. It isn’t what anyone expected but I think how you look at it as a whole can make or break your perspective. I will say it wasn’t perfect all throughout these 12 months, something has happened to possibly crush everything you love and worked on, but you’re still here, so that should count for something, right?

In this post, I will be discussing three different sections that I thought were important to highlight that defined 2020 for me and this blog as a whole.

Three Good Things

At the start of the year, I decided I needed to share a ritual I have been doing off and on since 2014 and that is choosing three things (or more if you had a great day!) and talking about them to my followers on my social medias. Unfortunately, it never took off on Twitter but I’m hoping I can do better in 2021 so more people who want to look past any unsettling mishaps and focus all of their attention on the good instead. I feel this was the reason why I think back on the year with a smile on my face.

I just want to point out that despite the fact I want to spread positivity to everyone, I need to say you will have bad days here and there. You’re never going to have perfect days or moments endlessly, but that’s not being realistic. I wish I had said something about this in the beginning because I think it would have helped me get over the really bad days after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I tried to keep a brave face but honestly I wasn’t feeling as confident as I usually am, so that’s why I took that long break over the summer to think about things that were going on around me. After some time I came back, although I wasn’t 100%, I still thought I needed to do something so I asked my followers to share their good things and reading their responses did give me a boost to join them again the next evening.

Once 2021 begins, I will be posting them every other day, because it was just easier to get things done because I found out through posting them every single day, that I am vert much a perfectionist! I was wondering when it was going to rear its ugly head back to me. I’m just thankful it didn’t stay around when I was working on my Christmas Tree projects like I thought. Anyways, I am already doing this schedule and have been for a while now, but I really enjoy it again so I think I will keep it going for as long as I want to, until I feel ready to switch back to the regular format.

I wrote this post three days before it was scheduled published and I knew the background I used for the first day was yellow, but I guess it didn’t register well enough when I made last night’s list. I was only going base off of what I used the day before–which was black, because I wanted a little black and gold theme for the final few days but again, I just forgot all about this until I went to update it (and man, wasn’t that an adventure!) anyways, do you remember what your first top three good things for 2020 was? What did you list for the last day of the year too?

Trial and Error

The reason why I am calling this post “Trial & Error” is because of what I put on my “Three Good Things” on the first of January 2020. The first one says “I chopped and peeled a potato without hurting myself.” Although I wish I could forget the events before this happened, I remember saying to my mom afterwards, “oh, it’s okay. Trial and error I guess.” And yes, I can recall what I said word-for-word because this would become the year’s motto. It was also a stab at my perfectionist side always attempting to break through on a daily basis! At the time, I didn’t think it would mean much but then I would catch myself saying it to anything that I did on my own that I normally wouldn’t do, so over time it started to mean something important to me.

I did a lot of things that I figured would never happen again, like completing my Goodreads Reading Challenge for the year and bring back painting pumpkins. Everything that happened that I haven’t done for a long time kind of scared me at first because I didn’t know if I should enjoy it and fear it would disappear for an even longer time, so I had to battle it out my emotions a bit, but now that I’ve done them, I fee like I can do them again and be better at them the second time around and I am overjoyed at it in the future!

Two Week Blogging Schedule

After 11 years of trying to work out a schedule that would not only work as far as publishing new content during the week, but inspiring myself to keep writing during a full month was really my biggest issue. I could work great for three months and lose all my love for blogging for like four months at a time and I would just feel absolutely defeated, so I knew I had to do something big or else I would have to stop blogging altogether and I don’t have any other backups or outlets that can compete to blogging so I was very determined to fix this problem once and for all.

When I decided that I was going to attempt reading ’20 books for 2020′ I knew I was going to make room to read, but what I didn’t exact was how comfortable I would be taking two weeks off a new month to devote myself to reading and then if I had time during my monthly vacation to do some work for the first full week back that was awesome too!

I really didn’t think I could last no more than a month using this new method but I did it for the entire year without feeling like I was going to experience a burnout like I would normally feel after a couple months so I knew I was doing something right here! There were times I would need an extra week because I was asked to review an artist’s music and I had established that Monday were the days I would talk about music, Wednesday would be about books; especially the reviews of the newly finished novels I was able to read in the weeks before, and Friday would be for anything else I wanted to talk about, but if I didn’t have anything special going on, I would post another review on that day. Everything seemed to work out perfectly and even this week, I kept the same layout I adapted towards the beginning of 2020 and was still exercising that format to the final week and was still enjoying it, seems incredible to me.

Well, I think I have officially run out of what I wanted to say in this post. I hope you have enjoyed all three posts in their rightful days. As of now, I should be back on the 18th of January, with all new content for you to consume and if you’re lucky, you might even get a book review on the 20th too, since I am right in the middle of A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St Clair. I am whizzing on through it as we speak so I hope you had a lovely and better 2021.

Bye.