Overall: 4.5 rounded to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: First person from both the hero and heroine
Cliffhanger: No

Should I read in order?
This is the first book in Roberts’s Dark Olympus series

Basic plot:
This a modern retelling of Hades and Persephone – After being betrothed to Zeus without her permission, Persephone flees to the River Styx and meets a man she was told was a myth...Hades.

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary style fantasy myth retelling (Hades and Persephone)
- “ruin me”
- scarred hero
- high steam with some kink elements – exhibitionism, voyeurism and 10ish scenes

Ages:
- Persephone is 24, not sure about Hades but ‘older’

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed this one! I listened the audio and thought it had great narration.

I’m not super familiar  with mythology- I know only the very brief basics of the idea behind Hades and Persephone’s story. So I liked this retelling and including the contemporary aspects to it (I’m not sure how close/far it stuck to the original mythology). It was a bit strange to me that the gods, the 13, were more of a placemarker role...like when one dies, another takes their place and changes their name.

I love ‘ruin me’ tropes and this one had a lot of scenes that really delivered. I appreciated the amount of time I got in Hades head and his thoughts and emotions about having Persephone with him. Exhibitionism isn’t my personal favorite kink, but it was hot here and I loved a lot of their intimate scenes. Overall I thought this was great and I’m definitely eager to try more from Katee Robert. (this was my first!)


Content warnings:

- Some scenes of fear, violence, death on page
- Mention of Zeus killing Hades family in a fire

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: I believe condoms are mentioned/used
I could have missed some I tend to get lazy on note taking with audio
Chapter 7 – kiss
Chapter 8 – 🔥 fingering for her
Chapter 10 – 🔥 mutual masturbation
Chapter 14 – 🔥 voyeurism scene where Hades brings Persephone to watch others. Fingering for her that becomes an exhibition scene with throat grabbing and her on top
Chapter 16 – 🔥 Hades cuts her clothes off her, oral and fingering for her, sex
Chapter 17 – 🔥 blow job followed by oral for her
Chapter 20 – 🔥 oral/fingering for her, throat grabbing, sex bent over a couch
Chapter 21 – 🔥 no protection, her on top
Chapter 23 – 🔥 blow job
Chapter 24 – 🔥 her on top while he stands, changing to dresser sex
Epilogue – 🔥 fingering for her, bent over a chair with exhibitionism