Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

To hell with love, this goddess has other plans...

Thousands of years ago, the gods told a lie: how Persephone was a pawn in the politics of other gods. How Hades kidnapped Persephone to be his bride. How her mother, Demeter, was so distraught she caused the Earth to start dying.

The real story is much more interesting.

Persephone wasn't taken to hell: she jumped. There was no way she was going to be married off to some smug god more in love with himself than her.

Now all she has to do is convince the Underworld's annoyingly sexy, arrogant and frankly rude ruler, Hades, to fall in line with her plan. A plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.

But consequences can be deadly, especially when you're already in hell . . .

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I love mythology. That was my favourite corner of the library growing up (in those days, of course, we got Greek/Roman, maybe a bit of Egyptian, probably a misshelved Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, and some Celtic. I adore the breadth of myths available now.) I was just about the right age when Hercules and later Xena started showing, and I realised that myths didn't have to be stodgy and old fashioned; they could be funny and irreverent and modernized and still carry that same meaning, that same sense of magic. This version of Hades and Kore/Persephone isn't modernized; it's still set very firmly in the heyday of the Grecian gods, and actually digs very deeply into how the Courts ran and how gods from different Courts interacted and so on. But it's also funny and clever and has a lot to say...all while being wrapped up in the best version of Beauty and the Beast I've read in a while.

(Side note, had everyone realised before this that Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast are very close to being the same story? You had? It's just me? Ok, then.)

This draws heavily from the oldest versions of the myths, where Kore had some agency and made decisions for herself instead of just being kidnapped and eating something. It also assumes that you have some knowledge of the basic myths; IE, the war with the Titans, which isn't often covered, is explained here, but who Ares is isn't, we're expected to know or infer it. It's a very clever way to deal with a story that everyone knows at least a bit of.

I love Kore/Persephone, I love Hades, I love the little court of allies and friends they build up around them. There are spots here when you can tell how angry Bea was when writing it, but they're very cleverly used to enhance the story, not to block it or hide the message under shouting.

This is an amazing read, it's going to show up on all the Best of lists and in all the Christmas catalogues, and I can't wait to start selling it.

Girl, Goddess, Queen publishes on the 20th of July, 2023. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.