Overall: 3.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡
Romance: 💞💞
Sensuality: 💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥 (I wouldn’t even count this as a flame but there is a mention of sex with zero details)
Humor: Not much
Perspective: First person from Hyperion/Hades
Cliffhanger: Yes. I suppose the story could end here but it definitely feels like there’s more to come
Epilogue: No
Format: voluntarily read a print book sent by the author

Should I read in order?
Yes – this is the first book of the series, but definitely leaves off on a cliffhanger and should be read in order.

Basic plot:
Hyperion wills a vision to come true of him and Persephone living in love and happiness.

Give this a try if you want:
- Hades/Persephone retelling
- YA feel – it has some dark elements but none of it is too gory
- Low steam – there is mention of sex and kisses but all events are about 1 sentence long with no details
- Hades POV
- A different take on Hades story

First line:
It began in 1690 with a Pomegranate Flower.

My thoughts:
This is a quick read, and definitely fun if you are into mythology retellings. I think I had a different direction in mind for the book so I struggled a touch with it.

The things I loved:
- Loved that it was all from Hyperion/Hades point of view!
- Enjoyed the emotional pull from Hades and everything he was going through
- Liked that this retelling felt a bit different from others I have tried

Things that didn’t work the best for me:
- I was expecting more Hades/Persephone time but Persephone is hardly in the story
- There was a lot of raw emotion without the background build up – the page count is low so the character depth wasn’t strongly developed and I wanted to understand more of the character’s backgrounds
- I was hoping for more romance?

Overall I think I got in my own head for this one about what I was expecting. Still it was a quick and decent read and I would consider reading more of the series when it’s published.

Content warnings:

- Infertility
- Spell casting
- Animal death (purposefully killing a moth for a spell)
- Deceived intimacy/rape – Hyperion changes his form to that of a king and has sex with the queen the claim the child (there are no details)
- Implied eating of corpses

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Pg 30 – kiss (short)
Pg 35 – kiss (short)
Pg 48 – a mention that he laid with her
Pg 62 – Hyperion drinks a vial of blood and changes to the body of a king and lays with a queen to claim her child (short)
Total pages: 137