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A review by natreviews
The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer
5.0
TW for the dark wife: rape and assault
I am going to be honest right away here: I am ignoring some of the spelling erors and the weird spacing issues. Every book I’ve read has had spelling errors, and the spacing issues (I have the physical copy of the book) are probably from formatting issues going from eBook to print. Not to mention I believe this is either self published or has a small publisher, so it also explains the formatting troubles.
I will tell you I love the story of Hades and Persephone. In all of its modern incarnations (this includes when the story takes place in a modern setting, or it shows hey, these two actually kinda have the hots for each other and Hades just didn’t steal Persephone), I haven’t found one yet that I haven’t liked. The fun twist of this one is what if it was gay, and Hades was a goddess. It could have come off super chessy, but it doesn’t. They pretty much acknowledge right when you meet Hades that this is the trope, and then maybe bring it up like 3 more times in the book, only really in relation to how Zeus has told lies and says that Hades is a man.
Yes, it does play fast and lose with the lore towards the end, but it really does stick close to the lore in the beginning. I love the transformation with Persephone. Was it a little rushed? Yes, but the book is only 260ish pages. Easily could’ve been 100 pages longer.
This story gives a lot of agency to Persephone. A lot of the time she takes a back seat in her own story. This novel goes from her perspective, and you learn a lot more about her and her struggles. You see her deal with issues and mess up sometimes, be unsure of her decisions, but gain strength from the first page to the last. I wish this book got a sequal, not telling the same story from Hade’s perspective, but maybe a continuation from her perspective (because this characterization of Hades is to die for... didn’t mean for the pun).
Also, who doesn’t love gays getting a happy ending??? I was originally going to rate this 4.5/5, but since it’s so rare to actually have a happy ending when it comes to LGBTQ2IA+ fiction, I’ll make this a 5/5.
I am going to be honest right away here: I am ignoring some of the spelling erors and the weird spacing issues. Every book I’ve read has had spelling errors, and the spacing issues (I have the physical copy of the book) are probably from formatting issues going from eBook to print. Not to mention I believe this is either self published or has a small publisher, so it also explains the formatting troubles.
I will tell you I love the story of Hades and Persephone. In all of its modern incarnations (this includes when the story takes place in a modern setting, or it shows hey, these two actually kinda have the hots for each other and Hades just didn’t steal Persephone), I haven’t found one yet that I haven’t liked. The fun twist of this one is what if it was gay, and Hades was a goddess. It could have come off super chessy, but it doesn’t. They pretty much acknowledge right when you meet Hades that this is the trope, and then maybe bring it up like 3 more times in the book, only really in relation to how Zeus has told lies and says that Hades is a man.
Yes, it does play fast and lose with the lore towards the end, but it really does stick close to the lore in the beginning. I love the transformation with Persephone. Was it a little rushed? Yes, but the book is only 260ish pages. Easily could’ve been 100 pages longer.
This story gives a lot of agency to Persephone. A lot of the time she takes a back seat in her own story. This novel goes from her perspective, and you learn a lot more about her and her struggles. You see her deal with issues and mess up sometimes, be unsure of her decisions, but gain strength from the first page to the last. I wish this book got a sequal, not telling the same story from Hade’s perspective, but maybe a continuation from her perspective (because this characterization of Hades is to die for... didn’t mean for the pun).
Also, who doesn’t love gays getting a happy ending??? I was originally going to rate this 4.5/5, but since it’s so rare to actually have a happy ending when it comes to LGBTQ2IA+ fiction, I’ll make this a 5/5.