I thought this book was a stand alone, spoilers, it's not. I really like this book it is a great retelling of the Hades and Persephone story.

I really liked the romance in this book. We got to see Persephone fall in love with Hades. This couple does what most fictional couples never do, talk to each other. It was really a breath of fresh air to have these two communicate about things and what they were feeling. While you can technically call this romance insta-love we get to see Persephone and Adion's relationship develop to one of trust understanding and mutual respect, which is pretty fucking great.

Persephone's character development is one to behold, seeing her mature and grow to be strong and powerful and self-confident was amazing. Hats off to Alexander for writing such an amazing character.

Thanatos just Thanatos. Firstly this Thanatos is not Riordan's Thanatos, we see that practically from the first line we meet him in this book and he is amazing. I love Thanatos in this book, he's sardonic and interesting and his relationship with Eris is so fascinating. I loved this character.

One thing the shocked me about this book though was the level of smut. From like chapter two we have some very discriptive sex scenes so if your squicky about that you should not read this book like at all

I'm not even going into everything that just worked for me in this book. It was just a really good book. I loved it