Reviews

A touch of darkness by Scarlett St. Clair

dcmcgehee98's review against another edition

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3.0

Greek mythology fanfic: feat. cardsharks and stockholm syndrome 3⭐️

cozykittens's review against another edition

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3.75

Fun read. Not necessarily a “great” book but I enjoyed the characters and the plot kept things moving. I’d read a third book of this for sure 

haleighg's review against another edition

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5.0

I throughly enjoyed this book. The build up and all! Would recommend

jkhossack's review against another edition

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5.0

One of my favorite books I've read in a long time. An intriguing version of the Persephone and Hades myth. My favorite myth. Definitely only for adults, due to plenty of on-page sex.

medievalme's review against another edition

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1.0

No.

kelseyscove's review against another edition

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5.0

Such a fun read! I was hooked from the first chapter and had a hard time putting the book down. There were a few unexpected twists that had me on the edge of my seat.

iamkarla's review against another edition

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2.0

A Greek 50 shades of gray. Might be some people’s jam but I was just rolling my eyes the whole time.

shanaelyse's review against another edition

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3.0

First things first, my actual review is 3.75 stars! But we can’t do that here. So a three is what I’m gonna give it.

Second, please read this and imagine Lee Pace as Hades. I BEG YOU.

Finally.

I’m a sucker for Persephone and Hades stories. Any of them. I will read them. So of course, I loved this just for that.

The writing is wordy at times. And I felt that a lot of details given were there to fill pages and not actually to progress the story. So many details were given about Persephone that were meant to assist in her character and I felt like none of it was actually addressed or referred to in a way that contributed to her development. How many times did I forget she was in college? Also her job at the paper get abandoned. She’s writing a whole six story series about Hades and the only one we actually hear about are the first two and the last. If this is something so important to Persephone I wanted to see more about it. Also, imagine her boss as Jeff Goldblum. I beg.

I think this story would have been even better just putting her in late-twenties to early thirties age range, but again, my personal opinion. One that’s fueled by the distaste for the “innocent-virginal-young” girl falling for the centuries old man. And while I know that’s like, the base for Persephone and Hades, it’s a re-telling y’all. We can make her a bit more age appropriate.

Hades fell flat in some parts for me. But overall I found him not as unlikeable as the author probably wanted him to be. He also felt underdeveloped throughout. But I know the author also wrote the story from his point of view so maybe that’s why?

Adonis is garbage. Lex, her friend was annoying. I wanted more Sybil and Hecate.

As mentioned before, the author has written an accompanying version from Hades perspective and it looks like she does this for the other novels in the series. I will more than likely pick up the next two novels in the series, as I did enjoy the ending and want to see where the author goes next. I will skip out on the Hades perspectives though.

The spice in this is okay? I initially picked this up because of the subject material and the promise of good spice from multiple Tik Tok recommendations. I was happy to see it took a good bit of time to get to the spicy scenes. But then after that it seemed like it was thrown in at every instance. Also the way the spice was written wasn’t my cup of tea. I found myself skipping and skimming the spicy passages because to me it just read like bad fan fic writing.

kiraa_reads's review against another edition

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3.0

“Respect could build an empire. Trust could make it unbreakable. Love could make it last forever.”

I expected to love this. I really did. The myth of Hades & Persephone is one of my favourites, and having a modern twist on it? Count me in! Unfortunately for me, I was disappointed after I finished reading this.

My biggest problem with this book was definitely the protagonist, Persephone. There was something about her that really threw me off. Why was she a journalist all of a sudden? But more importantly: why was she so angry and often jealous? I mean, come on, this is Persephone, not Hera.

Hades, luckily, was written well. I enjoyed reading about him and if I can be honest, he's the reason I kept reading. Hecate was fun too. Actually, the whole Underworld Crew was fun. Is it weird to say I may have liked Minthe more than Persephone? It was just those in New Athens I didn't really care about. Demeter and her rage were fun to read, I wish she got more screentime.

Oh, and I cannot not mention the smut. It's there, definitely. I knew that going into it, but at one point, it had a smutty scene every chapter. That was a bit much to me. The slow build up to the steamier scenes were nice, I can appreciate a slow burn.

Final verdict: 3 stars. While I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either. I'm willing to give the next book in this series a go. Hopefully the series will get better going forward.

brinas's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

3.5