A Touch of Ruin: 2 (Hades X Persephone)

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Throughout this novel, the romance between Hades and Persephone goes through many phases. Some of these phases are pleasant and others look a little more bleak. That’s only normal for a relationship and drives the character dynamics forward. She was a wARRIOR IN CHARGE OF PROTECTING PERSEPHONE??? SHE'S LITERALLY HANDLED WORSE BEFORE??? IN WHAT UNIVERSE COULD SHE JUST DROP DEAD??? NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT SHE'S A PRETTY IMPORTANT CHARACTER AND PROBABLY DESERVED BETTER??? The novel A Touch of Darkness is the first installment in a dark romance style retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades. In this series, the Gods are an ever-present part of a modernized society in which Persephone is an aspiring journalist and Hades owns his fair share of popular establishments. Apparently, Hades had made some deal with this shady mofo, in return for a favor. Still not entirely sure what the deal was, exactly, but Theseus, the guy, decides that he's going to take Persephone as his 'favor'. Hades has no choice but to let go, and she makes sure he can't come after her.

This leads him to Daedalus' labyrinth of all places, where he fights with the minotaur (just what we needed! /s), and literally walks into a trap made of a material used to bind gods. Hades' perspective ends with the minotaur dead and Hades himself passing out. I definitely don’t agree with Jaison’s treatment of Persephone though. Yes, he is Lexa’s boyfriend, but Persephone has been best friends with her for YEARS, and the fact that Jaison is Lexa’s significant other does NOT undermine the relationship between the friends. Like, I’m sorry but his attitude was atrocious and I’m pretty sure he never apologised. I also found this subplot (or actual plot?) quite out of place. This leads me to the issue of the plot? Where was it? Someone tell me where it was, because I have no idea. There was a lot of sex, and there was a lot of brooding and whining but not a lot of actual events or communication. There were a bunch of subplots that I felt were left open, but probably not important enough to be resolved in the next book, and the fact that at one point, Helen was left in the lobby waiting for Persophne and then never mentioned again? I don’t vibe. EVEN IF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, AND I MEAN LITERALLY NOTHING, HAPPENED DURING THE FIRST 90% OF THIS BOOK, BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE ANYTHING DID, AT THE VERY LEAST, SHOULDN'T THE BATTLE OF THE GODS THAT TAKES PLACE DURING THE LAST 10% OF THE BOOK BE WORTH ALL OF THE SENSATIONALIZATION OF THE PREVIOUS BOOKS AS WELL AS THE DIALOGUES OF CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK? SHOULDN'T THE PLOT HOLD AT LEAST SOME VALUE???

Publication Order of Fairy Tale Retelling Books

Other times, books are terrible, but when you read them, you get the feeling that it actually could have been much better, and that there was potential in the plot and characters that ultimately went to waste. I did find Hades to be sidelined quite a bit throughout this—and the romance between the two has been pretty stagnant since the end of the first book. The sex scenes between them aren’t any different than what we see in the previous two books, and now read as repetitive and bland. Scarlett does try to spice it up a bit here and there, but I didn’t sense any thrill in the characters or the writing during these moments, which left them reading as dull. Persephone never learns to talk to others about her problems. Even more-so that the first novel in the series, Persephone makes every problem worse by trying to solve them alone. At this point, she knows that Hades cares about her and she still makes everything worse for the both of them in the name of ‘independence’.

Turns out that Theseus is trying to overturn the old gods and somehow harness their power to become/create new gods?? And he needs the gods' divine weapons to that - Hera and Demeter are already on his side, along with his father, Poseidon. He now needs Persephone's help to get Hades' weapon - the Helm of Darkness. A Touch of Ruin is the second installment of the series from Persephone’s POV, in which Persephone struggles with her ability to trust Hades when faced with terrible tragedy. When Hades refuses to rebel against the fates for her, Persephone takes matters into her own hands. Will Persephone and Hades be able to move past this situation or is this going to cause permanent damage in their blossoming relationship? A Touch of Ruin is a bit of a letdown after A Touch of Darkness. That said, I will likely continue the series to see how the characters’ stories play out (and because I am clearly a glutton for punishment). why spend so much time building up Persephone’s career, if she does nothing with it throughout the whole book? We see her having meetings, getting her new office, reviewing Helen’s article in the first part of the book. But she doesn’t write any articles for her business, in fact, no one else writes any articles for her business either? Furthermore, she leaves her office just about every time she goes to work. I thought “well, maybe she is going to have an internal conflict about this later in the book, realizing that she cannot be a goddess/queen while also having a full time career”, but NOPE. I started rolling my eyes every time she got dressed for “work” because I knew she was not actually going to do anything. In fact, she was more invested in other news articles written by Helen than her own. Just filler plot. I want to see her be a boss queen!

My feelings on this series have been pretty mixed. I really loved the first book, highly disliked the second book, and I put off reading this one because of it. Now, with that set-up, and keeping in mind that this is the last 10% of the book, you would expect a battle worthy of all the build-up of the series, something with action, high-stakes, and maybe a few untimely demises here and there to keep things spicy, correct?

The fact I even have to write that to fend off criticism highlights everything that is wrong with the bookish community at the moment] Demeter shows up and all of them (ie, Theseus, Persephone, her friend Sybil, her girlfriend Harmonia, and Demeter) go to the entrance to the Underworld that leads straight to the vault where Hades' weapons (the Helm of Darkness amongst other things) are kept. And that brings me to my next gripe: Hades and Persephone’s relationship. It is dysfunctional, to say the least. Persephone is insecure in the relationship, constantly questioning Hades’ commitment to her and rarely giving him the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, when she is upset with him, she lashes out rather than communicate how she is feeling. That is not to say that Hades is blameless; he isn’t. He enables her behavior by constantly cleaning up her messes and shielding her from the consequences. Like Persephone, he is also not a great communicator, often choosing to give her space instead of talking things through. In addition to a developing relationship between Persephone and Hades, Persephone also learns and interacts more with the underworld. As the series progresses, Persephone is beginning to break out of her role as the sheltered daughter of Demeter and pave her own path. On that path, there are a lot of learning curves about the nature of life and death. Weaknesses

Publication Order of King of Battle & Blood Books

And let’s not even mentioned the fact that one minute Ajax’s bleeding body is convulsing under a screaming Apollo, and then a few chapters later he’s fine and good no mention of the multiple gunshot wounds? The two star rating has nothing to do with the numerous spelling/grammatical mistakes on the Kindle version that I read. Up through the first two thirds of this book I would have given this four stars. But then I started to question where the plot was going and what the plot even was. There’s definitely a storyline of public distrust and political upheaval in the story, but much of the early parts of the book read as though the only plot was for Hades and Persephone to have their union approved by Zeus. But at the same time, the story still seemed lost in the weeds and unsure of its direction.

To be honest, I don't ship these two or enjoy their romance as much as I used to. Sure, I don't want them to break up either, especially considering that a rogue love triangle will probably spring out of hell, the likes of which I don't have the braincells to deal with they're married and whatnot now, but I'm not as invested or even interested as I used to be. Somehow, during all of the chaos, Theseus manages to escape, (which i still don't completely understand, considering that there were at least two people watching him??? not to mention the fact that this sentence, "Persephone’s magic erupted, thorns rose from gashes in the marble, sealing exits." makes it impossible??? anywho, i try not to think about it much because it's quite headache-inducing), and unleashes the Titans.It didn’t matter that Sybil didn’t know of Persephone’s Divinity. She couldn’t do it. After a moment, Sybil looked up, meeting her gaze. “Persephone?” “I don’t make promises, Sybil.” The oracle frowned. “I was afraid you’d say that.” It didn't really matter to me if the conflict was even resolved in this book, just as long as we got some answers. Starting with the fact that this book is RIDDLED with errors. If you told me this book was a first draft that had never once seen an editor, I wouldn’t be surprised. Not just spelling and grammar, but we’ve got sentences with mixed tenses, we’ve got plot holes, we’ve got sections that straight up don’t make sense? Some examples: