Review – Persephone (The Daughters of Zeus, Book 1) by Kaitlin Bevis (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 194 pages
Publisher: ImaJinn Books
Release Date: April 23, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1611946222
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Daughters of Zeus series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

I got this book through NetGalley to review. This is the first book in the Daughters of Zeus trilogy. It was a fun and light young adult paranormal fantasyread with a lot of mythology in it. This is basically a retelling of the Persephone mythos.

Persephone is just a normal teenage girl who goes to high school and works at her mother’s flower shop. That is until one day she finds herself fighting off an attack from Boreas, the God of Winter. She survives the attack but ends up forced to seek shelter down in the Underworld with Hades. Suddenly Persephone is immersed in a world she never knew existed, she finds out she is a rare Daughter of Zeus and that her mother and history are nothing like what she thought it was.

This was a good young adult paranormal read with a lot of Greek mythology in it. I always enjoy reading stories that are based around some mythology. There’s nothing super spectacular about the story but it was an easy and fun read that I ended up enjoying.

Persephone is a pretty typical YA heroine. She’s got a caring side that is nurtured by her spring-like Goddess abilities, but she also has a bit of a dark side that allows her to relate to Hades. She was a fine heroine and I found her engaging, but she wasn’t all the different from a million other YA heroines out there.

Hades was a bit more interesting but I was hoping for a more edgy character. He has a whole love at first sight thing going on with Persephone but refuses to act on it because of the age difference between him and Persephone. Him and Persephone have some good chemistry going on, however I was never completely engaged in them as a couple…so I think the relationship and tension between the two could have been done better.

I really did enjoy all the mythology in here and how the Underworld was built and reimaged. I think this was the strongest part of the book. Bevis has done an excellent job creating an Underworld that is interesting, creative, and believable.

Overall this was a fun YA paranormal read. There isn’t anything spectacular about the book, but there isn’t anything that’s really poorly done either. I ended up finding it to be an entertaining and engaging read. I really enjoyed how the Underworld portrayed but I do wish our characters were a bit less vanilla and weren’t so typical of YA paranormal stories. I do plan on reading the next book in the series because I love reading about mythology and think this series is an interesting spin on mythology. I would recommend to those who enjoy YA paranormal stories and mythology.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mythology Reading Challenge