My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of The Palace of Eros, out in the UK in August! Cantoras is one of my all time favourites and so I had high hopes for this one - which I’m glad to say were met!! I did think this was going to be a perfect, no notes read (the first half was for me), and while it wasn’t flawless, it’s still in my top reads for the year so far and is just such a gorgeous depiction of desire, love and gender fluidity.

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I’m not at all familiar with Greek mythology, which may be a benefit to me - it meant I could just appreciate this story of Eros and Psyche as it was, without comparisons to the original. In Caro de Robertis’ version, Eros is a nonbinary deity (using various pronouns throughout) and as you may expect in a novel about the goddess of desire, it gets spicy 👀 But it was like, flowery spice - the prose is absolutely gorgeous, all honey and silk and the like. Nothing is generally stated in simple terms but that doesn’t stop the spice.

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Psyche whisked away from a miserable life being subjected to male desire constantly, apparently bringing shame to her family despite them encouraging the lecherous mens’ behaviour. Aphrodite grows jealous of this mortal woman drawing attention from her, and sends Eros to sort it out. But Eros falls instead, devising a plan to whisk Psyche away to a palace built just for them.

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In a way my feelings about the book mirrored Psyche’s journey - enraptured at first, but slowly beginning to want more. Eros’ palace promises freedom - all the food and sex and painting and weaving Psyche could desire - but that freedom has its limits, both physical and metaphorical. I want to stress that I did not lose interest, but once the problems started to occur, I was a tad less mesmerised by the story. However, still a lot of good stuff going on, particularly around gender and power and the way women are expected to be passive and shallow, but Psyche realising that she has the capacity to be anything she wants to be. I obviously also loved Eros being nonbinary, refusing to exist in one box or another, as others would prefer, but to exist completely without boundaries.

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I have seen some other reviewers comment on whether the attitudes of other Greek gods towards Eros was ‘accurate’ in terms of that society, but here my obliviousness about Greek mythology plays in my favour, as such details did not detract from my enjoyment of the story at all.

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Overall, stunning prose, incredible chemistry, gorgeous characters, just a beauty of a retelling!