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Hi All!

I just thought I’d switch things up by starting up my own site and share a bit more with you guys than I do on my bookstagram and Tumblr!

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Seher and I’m a reader based in Pakistan! I read just about everything I can get my hands on! That being said I adore fantasy and poetry! I used to post exclusively on Instagram, but now I’ve decided to try and maintain my own blog!

If you prefer Instagram, that’s all good! I’ve linked that below! And if you prefer getting your reviews and giveaways on Tumblr and Twitter, those will be here too!

I’m also using this as a more creative space, so you’ll also get plenty of tarot card posts, restaurant reviews (from Islamabad), and pictures of the sky after it rains! I’ll also be posting my writing update, which is something I’m trying to get back into!

This is The Girl Who Reads in chaos mode!

I maintain two tumblr accounts! Which does sound like a bit much, but both serve for different moods!

My book tumblr lets me post more content than I can on my bookstagram, so you’ll find more posts here (in the future) and more excerpts, etc!

https://bookstagramofmine.tumblr.com/

My poetry tumblr is a mood. Things that I love are posted there!

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry

You can also find me on twitter (where I generally just cry and complain about life)

https://twitter.com/allofthewhatifs

I listen to music on Deezer! I know its not spotify, but I just love the Flow button!

I have a lot of badges from all the sites I usually review on and now you have to see them because this is the first time I’ve had a place to put them! 🙂

100 Book Reviews
Reviews Published
Professional Reader

And last but not least, my google reviews!

  • Book Review: Chasing the Bride by Erica Ridley

    Book Review: Chasing the Bride by Erica Ridley

    So I read a lot of Erica Ridley!

    As you see here with Defying the Earl
    And here, with Taming the Rake
    And here with The Rake Mistake:

    Besides having the author in common, you can also see that each of these books was a NetGalley read!

    Which is even better! I get to read an author I like and I get to save some cash while doing it!

    You can read my post on that right here!

    Chasing the Bride is the 6th book in the Lords in Love series!

    Like the rest of the series, it’s published by Webmotion.

    But back to the review!

    At birth, Lady Tabitha Kerr was promised to Viscount Oldfield to try and mend a generations-old family rivalry. But despite her father’s desire for peace, she dreams of a love match. Ideally, with someone not a lecherous old man who stares down the chests of women even younger than her.

    Mr. Hudson Frampton is Viscount Oldfield’s man of business. After she runs away, he is tasked with finding Tabitha and bringing her back, to drag her kicking and screaming up the aisle if he must. He’s not supposed to fall in love with her, but he can’t help himself; after all, this is a Regency romance we’re talking about.

    So Tabitha and Hudson make a deal; she gets to have a week of freedom, and he gets to take her back “willingly” when it’s over. But as Tabitha and Hudson spend time together, they fall in love, and going back seems harder and harder. Still, with Tabitha’s father dying, she must.

    There isn’t much more to tell; after all, Chasing the Bride is a short read at 197 pages. We see Tabitha and Hudson enjoying a week of freedom and falling in love. Hudson comes from humble beginnings, and there isn’t a title waiting for him to offer her, so he doesn’t want to ruin her. Tabitha feels that after the scandal of her running away at her wedding, all of this other stuff doesn’t matter. Hudson turns out to be an intelligent guy, more than capable of taking care of himself. Tabitha turns out to be surprisingly thoughtful about the reasons behind her marriage. I love that despite the hopelessness of her circumstances she does actually take action and make her own decisions.

    Of course, there is love at the end. It’s a cute little story!

    What more do you need from a book?

  • Book Tour: The Alchemy of Moonlight by David Ferraro

    Book Tour: The Alchemy of Moonlight by David Ferraro

    Thank you TBR and Beyond Tours and NetGalley for the chance to read and review The Alchemy of Moonlight by David Ferraro

    Blurb for The Alchemy of Moonlight

    When Emile’s aunt declares he must marry or be disowned for being gay—he runs away to hide as a servant in Count Montoni’s mansion. In their service, Emile tends to the family who all suffer a strange affliction on the full moon. And after overhearing suspicious family arguments, he finds a body on the estate, drawing the attention of a handsome doctor as well as the count’s charismatic nephew, Henri.

    Before Emile can sort out his affections or unravel the growing Montoni family mystery, his identity is revealed and his aunt comes to collect him.

    When she arrives, Count Montoni forces everyone to depart to the remote Udolpho Castle—where there are no witnesses and no chance for escape. There, Emile realizes that he will have to risk his life to find the love he deserves—and survive the Montoni family.

    Review:

    I love that for Pride month my first review will be that of a queer gothic romance!

    My queen hath spoken

    And when the book starts off with a severed hand, you know it’ll be intense because our main literally finds a severed hand just lying there.

    And, shockingly, there are werewolves.

    So here’s the deal with The Alchemy of Moonlight. It’s a YA fantasy, with some wonderful gothic elements and a queer love triangle. It’s published by Page Street Publishing, which is distributed by Macmillan and focuses on being environmentally friendly. The book is also David Ferraro’s debut novel.

    That cover made me feel like the book was going to be absolutely perfect! And while I wish it was, I’m ultimately leaving it with 3 stars.

    Rating: 3 out of 5.

    The romance was not done well. I was supposed to believe that there was intense chemistry, and while I love Bram as a character, I hated hated hated Henri. I get that he’s supposed to be a spoilt count and improving, but man he was horrible to Emile. Like basically trying to coerce him into sleeping with him and trying to stop him from meeting someone he actually likes.

    Emile is 17, and he really does feel 17 in how he behaves with Bram and Henri, which can be really annoying. Bram is a decent person, and Henri is horrible; how can this be complicated? However, I do give him credit for having the courage to run away the way he did, with what’s happening with his aunt. As a whole, he doesn’t take the easy way out in any of these situations; he won’t marry Blanche and have them live in misery, cheating on the other partner forever. In comparison, Henri is okay with that.

    As a whole the story was fairly interesting, especially after they get to the castle of Udolpho in Italy, which is meant to be a nod towards The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. At this point every one of the characters is so desperate to help them escape that it’s just the most insane set of schemes, which eventually work.

    Some authors cannot write romance, but the Bram and Emile thing worked, which is why I don’t get the Henri thing or the most randomly introduced start of a polyamorous relationship, with Blanche now okay with being married to a dude because she can then be with a chick thing.

    This author does have a lot of potential

    After all, there seem to be a lot of people interested and talking about the book! And they all seem to have read it, flaws and all, until the end!

    The buildup is good, the different characters are good (I would have loved more of the female characters, like Annette and Blanche) and the plot is also good. But there are so many things happening at the same time that none of them can be fleshed out properly. Any news on the leeches? Why did that one servant hate Emile so much?

  • Book Review: The Highlander’s Enchantress by Violetta Rand

    Book Review: The Highlander’s Enchantress by Violetta Rand

    Thank you NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the chance to read and review The Highlander’s Enchantress by Violetta Rand.

    I’m a big fan of regency romance, but despite the Outlander phase that the world went through, I never really got into highlander romance. I made an exception for this because the cover looked really interesting. And of course, don’t all of us have a soft spot for a red haired heroine after Misty?

    I hope you guys know which Misty I’m talking about!

    This is my first Violetta Rand book, but this certainly isn’t the first one she’s written. Besides The Highlanders Enchantress, she’s written 15 other books, of which 3 are available on Kindle Unlimited; which is smart because if you like the first book in a series, you’ll be happy to buy the others in the series. The Highlanders Enchantress will be available on Kindle Unlimited on the 29th of May and I believe it will follow the same pattern.

    The book is a fun one for the most part. The plot is different if you’re a bit done with regency romance, but the storyline and attraction are simple enough to make it a chill read. We do have constant conflict that really escalates towards the end, but it’s a romance novel so you know it’ll end in a happy ending, and the low level conflict gives our heroine a chance to win our hearts.

    But what I really disliked is that it all escalated far too quickly and is resolved far too quickly for you to get into it. One second someone gets stabbed and everything is over without anyone being really sad. That rush is what made this book meh for me and I was sad that I had read all of it only to be let down like this. And you can’t even really get into the villains of the story; one is a monster and the other a guy with serious mental health issues (also terrible personality so you can’t sympathise, but also possibly dementia or something).

    All in all, the book just didn’t work for me.

    Rating: 2 out of 5.

    Blurb

    If her cruel and domineering father were to be believed, Kali Bane is the worst of women. Defiant. Independent. Were it not for her beloved younger sisters, she would have sought her freedom long ago. When she refuses to wed an old, wine-soaked English lord, her father bans her to the McKay clan in the Highlands, warning them that she’s a witch.

    There is no welcome at the McKay castle—only an aging laird prone to fits of temper who believes that Kali is, in fact, a witch. A sorceress. Here she is little more than a hostage, kept from sight from almost all but Adam McKay, the laird’s son, whose hypnotic green eyes make her long for something forbidden. It’s almostenough to make her abandon all thoughts of escape.

    Kali is the only one who can protect her sisters from their father’s greedy machinations. But the longer she remains imprisoned in the McKay tower, the more Kali and Adam realize there are other forces at play. They’re both pieces in a silent, terrible game that could destroy everyone they’ve ever loved…including each other.

  • Cover Reveal: Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao

    Cover Reveal: Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao
    Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao

    Valley Verified: From Haute Couture To HTML

    You guys have definitely seen me post about The Fraud Squad! Kyla Zhao is now back with her second book, Valley Verified, where Legally Blonde meets Silicon Valley!

    Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao
    Valley Verified by Kyla Zhao

    When a fashion writer dives headfirst into the cutthroat Silicon Valley tech world, her future threatens to unravel in this addictive novel by Kyla Zhao, author of The Fraud Squad.

    On paper, Zoe Zeng has made it in New York’s fashion world. After a string of unpaid internships, she’s now a fashion columnist at Chic, lives in a quaint apartment in Manhattan, and gets invited to exclusive industry events.

    But life in New York City isn’t as chic as Zoe imagined. Her editor wants her to censor her opinions to please the big brands; she shares her “quaint” (read: small) apartment with two roommates who never let her store kimchi in the fridge; and how is she supposed to afford the designer clothes expected for those parties on her meager salary?

    Then one day, Zoe receives a job offer at FitPick, an app startup based in Silicon Valley. The tech salary and office perks are sweet, but moving across the country and switching to a totally new industry? Not so much. However, with her current career at a dead end, Zoe accepts the offer and swaps high fashion for high tech, haute couture for HTML. But she soon realizes that in an industry claiming to change the world for the better, not everyone’s intentions are pure. With an eight-figure investment on the line, Zoe must find a way to revamp FitPick’s image despite Silicon Valley’s elitism and her icy colleagues. Or the company’s future will go up in smoke—and hers with it.   

  • Audiobook Review: I, Antigone by Carlo Gebler

    Audiobook Review: I, Antigone by Carlo Gebler

    Title: I, Antigone

    Author: Carlo Gebler

    Narrator: Stephanie Racine 

    Publisher: Saga Egmont Audio

    Pages: 242

    Release Date: 3rd September, 2021

    A Greek mythology girlie through and through it only made sense that I start my audiobook journey with I, Antigone.

    I was lucky enough to get my audiobook from NetGalley. And I’m glad that I started it a long while ago and left off when I hurt my knee. The book came in handy today. I was going to cry in the middle of 50 person line to enter a tax office, and yell at my boyfriend and HR. Books can save you in the most unexpected of ways, in unlikely spaces.

    The story of Oedipus has always been a tragic one. No less tragic is the story of Jocasta, his wife and mother, and his children, one of whom, Antigone, narrates this story. We know Antigone’s story for the play by Sophocles. We know her fathers story even better. After all, Frued had a field day.

    Frued didn’t mention that Oedipus tore his own eyes out.

    I feel like there isn’t much I should mention about the plot. A book based on Greek mythology depends only on the strength of the writer and the journey they take on us. After all, we know these stories; we know the start and end and what happens in the middle. These characters are compelled to act the way they do. After all, as Stephen Mitchell put it,

    “the trojans couldn’t give Helen back because they didn’t give her back.”

    And as Antigone says

    I’m not free to not do it.

    There’s something oddly comforting and terrifying in that; that sometimes we must do what we must do for no other reason than it was written in us. Nurture or nature; fate or chance, the odds are sometimes just so stacked against us and all we can do is hurry ourselves along with some dignity.

    This book was a good example of that. We never talk about Oedipus and Jocasta as man and wife. It’s always hidden away under what we know is incredibly repulsive. Although I think those of us who also grew up on Flowers in the Attic know that life is a bit harder and more messy than it needs to be. But his fidelity at the end when he asks to go to her funeral and is denied by Creon is a bit different. After all, we all know how horrified Oedipus and Jocasta were; the idea of fidelity, even after that is truly something. It’s these details that Carlos Gerber uses to bring them to life; to make us sympathetic towards them. We don’t need to like them all the time or their actions; but the story of Oedipus, as other stories in Greek myth, has always been one to show us that human beings are doomed. And it’s only how we conduct ourselves through that fate that make our lives worth something.

  • Book Review: Defying the Earl by Erica Ridley

    Book Review: Defying the Earl by Erica Ridley

    Defying the Earl is my third Erica Ridley book, so I may as well admit that I like her books and commit to reading the Lords in Love series (this is the second book I’ve read in the series) and The Wild Wynchesters!

    This particular book, Defying the Earl, came out on the 21st of April! I’m thrilled to have gotten a copy by Webmotion via NetGalley. It’s a short read at 221 pages! If you haven’t already guess from the cover, Defying the Earl falls in the regency romance or historical romance category!

    As I mentioned earlier, Defying the Earl is the fourth book in the Lords in Love series. I’ve also read Taming the Rake, the second book in the series as well as her book The Rake Mistake.

    I don’t want to try to intellectualise things too much. The book is fun. We have a scarred, grumpy earl with his sunshine sweet ward, and they like each other from the get-go. He does try to resist but succumbs, obviously. I loved that the book didn’t try to make massive drama for the both of them; we had some petty people around them, and that was dealt with quickly. This is honestly my favourite version of the black cat boyfriend and golden retriever girlfriend trope!

    Blurb for Defying the Earl

    Miss Matilda Dodd refuses to be any man’s property. She’s a month shy of her majority, and cannot wait to live life on her own terms. Rather than meet her unwanted new guardian as instructed, she attends a ball and comes kiss-to-kiss with an adorably befuddled handsome lord instead. But the grumpy, sexy stranger turns out to be the new guardian, hell-bent on marrying her to someone else!

    Titus Noble, the Earl of Gilbourne, is an emotionless, rigid automaton who lives for predictability and order. There is no room in his exacting schedule for a ridiculous matchmaking festival, and there is no room in his peaceful life for an unexpected ward. The only solution is to marry the chit to the first fool willing take the hoyden off the earl’s hands. That is, if Titus can keep his hands off his maddening, kissable ward…

    Lords in Love
  • Book Review: The Maiden by Kate Foster

    Book Review: The Maiden by Kate Foster

    There is nothing that I love more than a good feminist retelling! And I am so glad to have gotten my hands on Kate Foster’s upcoming debut novel that features the story of the White Lady of Corstorphine, a ghost who haunts the Corstorphine Castle.

    Some backstory

    Despite the internet being pretty great, it’s hard to find details on this story. That’s how the world still remains enchanted in some ways; sometimes, you have to be there to hear a particular story. There was a Facebook post on this myth, but I’m not too fond of that version of the story; I want us to remember this one. Even when you google Lady Christian Nimmo, you don’t hear too much about her. Two of the first page results link us back to this book.

    But that story aside, Kate Foster isn’t here to paint a historically accurate version of things in this book. Kate Foster is here to tell a story, with details of that crime and the space in which it took place.

    Back to The Maiden

    The Maiden comes out on the 27th of April, 2023. It’s 384 pages long and will be published by Mantle, a Pan Macmillan imprint. While it’s mostly a work of historical fiction, fans of thrillers and feminist retellings will like the book. I was lucky to get a copy via NetGalley!

    The book tells the story of Lady Christian Nimmo, how she started having an affair with her uncle (her blood aunt’s husband), and the turn it took. The book also focuses on Violet, a prostitute in Edinburgh, who James, the uncle, has kept on as a mistress.

    More than that is a spoiler. The few links you get about Christian tell you all you need to know.

    What I didn’t like:

    I didn’t like Violet. I understand that she knows how to survive, but I also feel like, given the time and age, if she had existed, she would have been implicated in the murder for sure. I would have loved more of Oriana, who is infinitely more interesting and has more to say and do. We would have learned a lot more about Lillias and the whole castle and people if she had been more of the main.

    But there are good reasons to read The Maiden:

    Because I can guarantee that you haven’t heard of this myth story before, and sometimes that’s all you need. It’s set in Corstorphine and Edinburgh, and it’s nice to have a change of scenery from London and New York in works of historical fiction. While Violet and the other women don’t exist in real life, the time and setting of the story allow us to see a society in flux. Christian is not being married off to another lord; her husband is a merchant (a very wealthy one). If we were reading a work of historical fiction set in London, that would have been the biggest crisis.

    The Maiden is also a story about loneliness and how things are so cloaked in secrecy. Christian and her husband should be having sex. But he regularly dismisses her and never wants to touch her; there can never be an honest conversation. It’s also a bit sad because if you check out any all-female group on Facebook (dedicated to Pakistani women), this is still a problem. Female desire isn’t supposed to exist.

    And in that, it’s also about loneliness and how beauty standards impact us. Despite being lovely and graceful, Christian is also acutely aware that she is not beautiful like her sister, which hinders her in a world where her only aim can be marriage, something that she doesn’t want. She would have loved to travel, but she just can’t. Her husbands rejection of her in that regard makes her double down on this, which is why James calling her beautiful matters so much.

    The most important lesson of The Maiden is that of sexual abuse and grooming in families. Almost 34% of child sexual abuse is committed by relatives. And this story we see that happening very clearly. From the get-go, we see that James is interested in Christian, and as we go ahead in the story and see Christians’ memories, he’s been interested since she was as young as 13. It’s a game he’s played for years, and he isn’t too put out by her getting married. We can argue about different times and standards, but this is a grown man married to her aunt. His behavior is noted by the mother, who can’t do much because they need his help. But she also doesn’t do much to reduce it by telling Christian to wear what he gives her or even giving her some hint as she’s older.

    Final Verdict:

    I loved this book and will leave it four out of five stars! I can’t wait to read more by Kate Foster!

  • Book Review: Mountains Made of Glass by Scarlett St. Claire

    Book Review: Mountains Made of Glass by Scarlett St. Claire

    I haven’t read any Scarlett St. Clair, so the smut was a bit of a shock.

    But let’s start with housekeeping for this

    Mountains Made of Glass by Scarlett St. Clair is a fairy tale retelling that came out on the 7th of March. I was approved for an e-copy, courtesy of NetGalley, by Bloom Books when I requested it because anyone on bookstagram, or Goodreads, or literal or booktok has heard of Scarlett St. Clair at this point.

    I’m also generally a fan of Sourcebooks, and I’m into Greek mythology-inspired reads (I own A Touch of Darkness even if I haven’t read it), so Scarlett St. Clair has been on my radar for some time. This fact is incredibly irrelevant, but I was also a big fan of The Twins of St Clare as a kid, and that’s probably a factor in why I remember the author’s name.

    So it’s mostly (read: entirely) my fault for never having looked up the bit where Mountains Made of Glass is a dark fantasy with plenty of smut. So if you, like me, are a bit slow on the uptake, I’m telling you now. Please do check the trigger warnings as well!

    The book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and the closest comparison I have to it is ACOTAR. Shocking, right? Our main character, Ela, has absolutely no one in the world. Her sister and her parents are dead, and the village seems to fear her family and the woods surrounding them. A curse claims a villager every year, egged on, of course, by the more powerful sacrificing the weaker ones, and this year it’s Ela’s turn.

    The way he spoke was not lost on me, as if he and I were an inexorable truth.

    Instead of kissing the frog (I loved the inclusion of that tale), Ela has to kill it, which she does. But the frog has six elven brothers ready to avenge him, with five of them appearing to send her to their brother, the beast of the story, as a slave. Ela can either be free in a week if she guesses his name right, or he’ll forget his name and fade into oblivion, but she doesn’t know that for the most part.

    We know how the story will go; this is a fairy tale retelling; there is a happy ending. But there is a reason why we read and don’t use those stupid book summary apps; we enjoy the path the author takes to get us there. St Clair builds a good worldbuilder! She grounds it things we’ve heard about and then takes it away from there to something magical and horrible at the same time. Wolf is the only decent thing there; everyone wants something and is constantly bartering to get it, whether that is the selkie or even the prince. Nothing is gentle and pretty; beautiful things are cruel, as is expected of them.

    The fairy tale elements keep coming in with a sentient magic mirror and the beast’s acquaintances that remind him that the way to win a woman’s heart is probably not just through cruelty; you need to be gentle and have tact and patience and a bunch of other things. In that regard, I also felt for the prince and his role in this fairytale; a prisoner trying to return to a princess he does not love.

    Fundamentally, Mountains Made of Glass is the adult version of Beauty and the Beast and is done well enough for me to understand this author’s hype. I thoroughly recommend it, and I’m leaving it four stars out of five, and I will try to start A Touch of Darkness soon! 

  • Book Tour: Queen Bee by Amalie Howard

    Book Tour: Queen Bee by Amalie Howard
    Queen Bee by Amalie Howard

    Thank you, NetGalley and TBR and Beyond Tours, for the chance to read and review Queen Bee by Amalie Howard.

    Book Tour with TBR and Beyond Tours

    Lady Ela Dalvi doesn’t suffer the usual betrayal from her childhood best friend. Those betrayals are usually petty, blown up beyond recognition. You can look back and laugh at how stupid you were. Poppy does far more than that. She sets out to ruin Ela’s reputation and, through that, her life. Years later, Ela is back for revenge on everyone involved. She has the money, the looks, the charm, and a plan. But sometimes love and friends can get in the way.

    Queen Bee is a fun read; I left it with 3.5 stars! It’s a super fun Count of Monte Christo retelling; honestly, we need more of those around! Amalie Howard is a good writer, and the book is fast-paced, with fun petty stuff being done to Poppy and enough drama at the end.

    However, many things could have been cleaned up a bit more. This book is billed as YA Historical Romance, which generally falls under Regency Romance. The regency world tended to have a lot of rules, so I don’t know if Ela, or even Poppy, could have gotten away with any of this. I understand that it’s meant to be anti-historical. Still, even if it is anti-historical, the rules make things a bit more interesting. In addition, the representation, like that of Bridgerton, felt slightly token. There is more to Indian culture that could have been included, that wasn’t just a longing for a sari.

    Overall, I recommend the book, and it does seem to be doing well with other readers (it.s 4+ stars on Goodreads with 350+ reviews). It is YA, so I may be more critical of things than its intended audience, who should enjoy it! It is also Amalie Howard’s debut novel, which means we should only see more and more from this author and even better things! As of now it’s only been out 2 weeks!

    Queen Bee Blurb

    Lady Ela Dalvi knows the exact moment her life was forever changed—when her best friend, Poppy, betrayed her without qualm over a boy, the son of a duke. She was sent away in disgrace, her reputation ruined.

    Nearly three years later, eighteen-year-old Ela is consumed with bitterness and a desire for . . . revenge. Her enemy is quickly joining the crème de la crème of high society while she withers away in the English countryside.

    With an audacious plan to get even, Ela disguises herself as a mysterious heiress and infiltrates London’s elite. But when Ela reunites with the only boy she’s ever loved, she begins to question whether vengeance is still her greatest desire.

    In this complicated game of real-life chess, Ela must choose her next move: Finally bring down the queen or capture the king’s heart?

  • Book Review: Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

    Book Review: Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

    Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin, for the chance to read the ARC of this book!

    Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

    Girl, Goddess, Queen is Be Fitzgeralds’s debut novel that will be out on the 20th of July, 2023. This 496-page book is a clean Hades and Persephone retelling that attempts to restore agency to Persephone in a fairly creative way.

    @chaosonolympus

    The way the callisto myth is simultaneously in support of lesbian readings of artemis but also more artemis sketchy behaviour #artemis #greekmythology #zeus

    ♬ original sound – ▪️ – jez

    You guys may have also seen the authors instagram and TikTok accounts.

    If you know anything about me, you know I love Greek mythology-inspired books! While my favorite myth is that of the Trojan war, I’ve read enough about Greek mythology to know a bit about the Hades and Persephone myth, including that one incredibly disturbing version where Zeus has three kids with her, and she’s also still his daughter.

    Blurb:

    To hell with love, this goddess has other plans…

    Thousands of years ago, the gods told a lie: how Persephone was a pawn in the politics of other gods. How Hades kidnapped Persephone to be his bride. How her mother, Demeter, was so distraught she caused the Earth to start dying.

    The real story is much more interesting.

    Persephone wasn’t taken to hell: she jumped.

    There was no way she was going to be married off to some smug god more in love with himself than her. 

    Now all she has to do is convince the Underworld’s annoyingly sexy, arrogant and frankly rude ruler, Hades, to fall in line with her plan. A plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.

    But consequences can be deadly, especially when you’re already in hell . . .

    Review:

    There are many things to like about this book. It’s taken into account every myth about Persephone and Hades and turned them on their head. As we start the book, Kore is still trying to get out of her marriage, and going to Hades to invoke Xenia is the only way she knows how to delay things. As the book progresses and they become friends and allies, Persephone comes into her powers and figures out how to stay bound to the underworld and the person she has grown to love.

    The book is super fun and very easy to read. I read in the span of a night. There are a whole host of interesting characters, and they’re all rooted in greek mythology. I LOVED LOVED LOVED that Sappho reference (at least, I hope I’m not being an idiot and that was a Sappho reference). In general, I really liked how the author referenced greek mythology and how she had her own interpretations of what happened. It really is a fun book. But if you are reading the book, you should know that it’s not very Song of Achilles, or Cassandra, or A Thousand Ships; it’s incredibly modern in writing style.

    That’s also sometimes the book’s most significant drawback; it’s sometimes just so modern and just so girl-bossy that it can feel very shallow. Things are so spelled out that you’re wondering if you really are the right audience for it or not. It’s classified as coming of age on amazon, but when it’s greek mythology, you should expect older readers (and not just YA readers) to pick it up.

    Final Verdict:

    This book will surely be a hit on BookTok and Bookstagram, not because of the author but because it is undoubtedly a fun, light read. However, the author can develop her style to produce books that are more mature (and I really don’t mean smut wise). I will be reading more by Bea Fitzgerald!

    Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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