Although Persephone is the goddess of spring, she has never been able to fully use her magic. She therefore has to rely on her mother's magic to hide her true identity so she can study journalism in the human world without attracting unwanted attention. After accidentally making a bargain with Hades, the god of the dead, she has to find a way to create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom entirely. However, she also sees this as the perfect opportunity to write an article about Hades and his schemes. What she never could have imagined is that the more time she spends with him, the more she starts to fall for him.
After reading *A Game of Fate*, I knew I wanted to read the first book in the series and experience the story from Persephone's perspective as well. I really enjoyed the writing style, as it pulled me right into the story. However, I have to admit that I liked Hades' perspective quite a bit more. Persephone isn't particularly likeable at first, and she just can't seem to make up her mind about Hades or how she feels about him. This also leads her to be quite unfair to him at times. She sees all the good he does, but she refuses to believe that he might not be as bad as her mother has made him out to be. Considering how cruel her mother is, I just don't understand why Persephone blindly believes her instead of trusting her own instincts. Their relationship is rather strange anyway, which makes Persephone's willingness to believe her mother even harder to understand. Once she finally realizes how wrong she's been, I like her a lot more. I still liked Hades quite a lot throughout the book, but getting to know his own perspective made him much easier to understand. That's also why I don't really understand why the story had to be told in two separate books instead of one with alternating points of view. Honestly, I would have enjoyed that quite a bit more. I also felt that there wasn't much actual world-building, which was a bit disappointing. On the other hand, I loved getting to meet some of the side characters again, and Hecate remains my favourite among them, unless we're counting the dogs.
All in all, I enjoyed the story, but I still prefer Hades' perspective and think the two books would have worked much better as one with alternating points of view. I'm giving it 3.5 stars.
