What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Considering how few of Queen Victoria’s Londoners knew of it, the great Romanesque fortress was dreadfully imposing, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met the powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadow, the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She knew simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow-white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gifts. But this arched stone doorway offered a portal to a new life, an education far from the convent—and an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death… (DESCRIPTION FROM GOODREADS)
So here we have a very imaginative take on the Hades and Persephone myth. But, unlike many of the books floating around lately about these 2 it is not a romance between them.
Hades (aka Darkness) is the baddie while Percy can’t even remember that she was once a goddess.
There is quite a bit that goes on in this book and I don’t want to risk giving too much away – although things do seem to be pretty obvious as you read and things unfold.
The only characters that I really liked were Percy and her best friend Marianna. The Guard (which consists of the rest of the main characters) kind of bugged me. They were so blind and prejudiced, that they ignored all of the signs pointing to Percy and waltz straight into a trap – that anyone could see coming from a mile away. At that point all I could think was, ‘Yeah well, it serves you right, if you die I will not miss you’ Idiot people. And the reasons behind their doubt and idiocy were not even logical *cough* jealousy *cough*
Our ‘hero’ – I used the word very loosely. Was the dark brooding type which apparently is meant to be seen as sexy… Now don’t get me wrong I love me some Mr Rochester but I just saw this guy as being moody and wanted him to grow up already. And man up when the time came for him to fight for the woman he loved. Needless to day he was not getting many brownie points from me.
There was a freaky supporting character and I couldn’t figure out if he was supposed to be some kind of comic relief or just a scary randomer… Yeah… I really wanted to skip his bits as he really creeped me out.
All in all a fun listen. (yeah, I listened to this in audio-book format). The narrator did a brilliant job of the voices and at keeping me in the story when all I wanted to do was knock some heads together. If I had been reading and not listening to this book I think it would have been air-born and hitting the wall a few times.
It was definitely a different take on the Hades/Persephone tale. Not a favourite though…
You just made me feel so much better about not reading this book - because I had heard good things about it but I don't know, never felt the pull to read it -but still, felt a bit guilty about passing on it since I kept hearing it was awesome.
ReplyDeleteFrom your review I feel pretty confident in saying that it's not for me. Plus, I'm kind of Hades-And-Persephone-ed Out.