Review: a hell of a good read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 12, 2013
Okay, so we've all heard of Persephone. She was the beautiful daughter of Zeus who so charmed Hades, God of the Underworld, he abducted her, dragging her into his lair before finally setting her free after Big Daddy threatened to destroy him. It's a myth that's survived and been adapted over thousands of years. What it hasn't been adopted as, until now, is a template for a classic young adult romance. But that's exactly what Kaitlin Bevis has achieved with her new novel.Persephone is an ordinary, everyday sixteen year-old living in modern-day Athens (Georgia, US). Ordinary that is, but for certain downright supernatural things happening all about her. Turns out Persephone might be more than she seems, which brings its own benefits, of course. Because, hey, who wouldn't want to be a Goddess? But it's not all fun, and in Boreas, the God of Winter, Bevis has created a truly appalling villain. Cruel, sadistic and ultimately irredeemable, he represents a genuine threat not only to Persephone's happiness and wellbeing, but to her life. Which is where Hades comes in. Far from the malicious scoundrel of Greek mythology, Bevis's Hades is a somewhat benign if complex God. Holed-up in an Underworld that more resembles the traditional America `burbs than Dante's Inferno, there is something of the misunderstood troubled `beast' to Persephone's `beauty' here. It's in this unconventional May to December romance between Persephone and Hades where the book will stand and fall, and thankfully it's a romance that charms and convinces.With a denouement that happily sets up the possibility of further instalments, and characters you'll be delighted to spend more time with, Kaitlin Bevis's Persephone is an ambitious reimagining of a classic myth that turns out to be a hell of a good read.Reviewed by Jamie Simpson on behalf of Bestchicklit.com