Heart of Ash is a modern day sapphic urban fantasy retelling of Hades and Persephone. I really enjoyed the writing style here, it’s modern but also has a classic feel to the rhythm of it. We have Indie (AKA Persephone) and Theo (AKA Hades). There are some recurring side characters in Indie’s friends Melinda and Olivia, Theo’s old friend Alan, and a few others. I would have liked to have seen a bit more fleshing out of Melinda and Olivia, but they did their job of helping develop the plot. Of all the characters we get the most insight into Indie. The first 11 chapters are all told from her perspective, which makes it a lot easier to connect with her. With chapter 12 we start to see Theo’s perspective as the story shifts to a dual POV, which I found really interesting, and I was wishing we had seen more of that earlier in the story.

There were some things that felt a little disjointed in the story. It has essentially two climaxes, one about halfway through and then a second near the end, and it feels like two separate stories with the characters and part of the storyline (the Persephone and Hades theme) spread across both parts. I found myself wanting a bit more tying the two parts together. Maybe that disjointed feeling was the point, given that it is based on the story of a woman forced to spend half her time in hell and half her time in the real world, but if it was I don’t think it was clear enough in the writing. Even so, it was a really enjoyable overall.

I received a free ARC from BookSirens, but my review is unbiased and left voluntarily.