Synopsis:

A Touch of Darkness is a modern day retelling of Hades and Persephone.

Persephone is the Goddess of Spring by title only. The truth is, since she was a little girl, flowers have shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hopes to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist.

Hades, God of the Dead, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favourite bets are rumored to be impossible.

After a chance encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead and the terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever.

The bet does more than expose Persephone’s failure as a goddess, however. As she struggles to sow the seeds of her freedom, love for the God of the Dead grows—and it’s forbidden.

Review:

I’ve read a few books inspired by Hades and Persephone and A Touch of Darkness is up there as one of my favourites. It was a bit like reading a spicier version of Lore Olympus, which is a compliment. Usually these retellings, especially modern day ones, don’t have Persephone and Hades as actual gods, they’re usually normal people with names adapted for the modern times. However, this was both the modern day but also included the actual gods.

Speaking of the gods. I loved how many of them were included in A Touch of Darkness. You always get Zeus, Poseidon, Hera etc. but it was great to have Hecate involved. I feel like these stories often don’t include Hecate, but she’s one of the coolest people in Greek mythology. She’s the mother of witchcraft, you don’t get much cooler than that.

I loved how the gods were incorporated into everyday life in New Athens and they aren’t kept a secret. Most of them own clubs and businesses, and live among humans. I thought this was a really fun way of retelling Hades and Persephones’ story and having their relationship begin because Persephone goes to his club was fun.

I instantly loved the relationship between them. Obviously you’re already a little biased if you like the original story, but I thought their chemistry was great. I love mean banter and speaking to Hades was pretty much the only time Persephone didn’t sound like an idiot. They challenged each other and this really helped with her naivety – which I know is an important part of her character. But I liked how Hades brought her out of her shell and gave her the confidence to stand up for herself.

I usually find single narrated audiobooks hard to focus on but the narrator did a really good job. The put on voices didn’t make me cringe too much and I think the acting was pretty great. I didn’t even find the spicier scenes cringeworthy, which is no small feat, I’m not really a fan of that in audiobooks.

Be warned, there is quite a lot of ‘spicy’ content but this doesn’t happen until the second half of A Touch of Darkness. I personally don’t think there was too much of this and the inclusion of these scenes sets up Persephone for development. Her mother, Demeter, wants her to be a ‘maiden goddess’ and her being with Hades directly goes against that. 

Hades is just a poor little lover boy in a Touch of Darkness. This may be his broodiest and most pitifully in love depiction yet (that I’ve read). The miscommunication Persephone has with him about this drove me a little crazy as it’s painfully obvious that he’s loved her from the start. He literally started a charity based on an idea she gave him.

I’ve just found out there’s an alternative version of this book from Hades’ perspective, the whole series actually. Well, I’m definitely interested in checking those out at some point. I have just bought the next two Persephone audiobooks in this series, so I’ll be listening to those first. I’m extremely interested in knowing Hades’ thoughts throughout the first book though.

If you have an Audible Plus subscription and you’re interested in checking out a Touch of Darkness, I’d highly recommend you do. For the most part I found this to be a very easy listen and the hours literally flew by.

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