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A Game of Retribution on 2022 Buy on Bookshop
Become enchanted by the fantasy world of gods and mortals in bestselling author Scarlett St. Clair's reimagined New Greece. Readers are "hopelessly addicted" to the story of Hades and Persephone.
Hades, God of the Dead, does not take sides or bend the rules. He makes no exceptions to these values--not for god or mortal, even his lover, Persephone, Goddess of Spring.
Usually, fear prevents retaliation.
But not this time.
When Hera, Goddess of Women, approaches Hades with a plan to overthrow Zeus, he declines to offer help. As punishment, Hera sentences Hades to perform a series of labors. Between killing mythical monsters and recovering deadly stolen artifacts, each feat seems more impossible than the last and draws his attention away from Persephone--whose own tragedy has left her questioning whether she can be Queen of the Underworld.
Can Hades maintain the balance he craves?
Those who know me know that I am not only a sucker for Greek mythology but that I have a particular liking for the Persephone myth. Honestly, it’s less the Persephone-and-Hades dynamic than it is seeing this Daughter of the Harvest flower goddess become a powerful queen of dark magic. I like the Eleusinian mysteries and the cults of Kore. It’s all very fascinating, thinking of this innocent young girl becoming a mature, compelling woman in her own right.
In any case, this book is mostly not that. This book is a retelling of St. Clair’s other series about Hades & Persephone that starts with A Touch of Darkness. That series was from Persephone’s viewpoint. This one is from Hades’. I haven’t read the first series, but as this one is being touted as ‘all new’, I presume there are additional story elements and subplots in this one that were not in the first.
I enjoyed the bits about Hades helping Persephone to come into her own power, but let’s be real here: this is a romance novel. That means, to put it succinctly, that there is a whole lot of fucking going on. The sex scenes were believable and well done. I didn’t spend a lot of them cringing at word choice, and that’s always a plus. That said, I am not the target audience for this. I’d rather enjoy seeing the relationship aspects instead of the physical ones, but since the relationship in the two books I read was a whole series of misunderstandings, we’ve got more physical stuff to work with.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed these books! I look forward to reading the third one! But Hades’ point of view is mostly murder, murder, murder, guilt, tenderness, murder, and that’s only in the portions where he wasn’t thinking about his dick. Boy, does Hades think about his dick. A. Lot. I didn’t realize anyone could think about their genitals that much. Is that what being a man is like? It sounds exhausting!
I’m being a little playful here. St. Clair clearly knows her stuff and she does her job well. I admire writers who can write about sex well. It’s very, very easy to do it wrong. (Not ‘do it’ wrong. I meant the writing…) If this is a genre you enjoy, you’ll probably like it even better than I did. I’d just normally prefer the sex to be a smaller portion of the book… That is clearly not what this book was, but it was still enjoyable for me and that’s how I know it was a good one!
