Sisterhood of Reading

A Touch of Ruin (Hades x Persephone Saga #2)- Scarlett St. Clair

Rating- 🤩🤩🤩🤩
Spice Level- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Format- Audiobook
Genre- Romance, Fantasy, Greek Mythology, Retellings

Persephone and Hades are back again in the second book of the series. This time, their relationship is public. Everyone knows Persephone is Hades’ lover. For someone who has tried to hard to stay out of the spotlight, it somehow keeps finding her. She wants to continue living life and a ‘normal’ mortal and it is becoming more difficult. Her own boss at New Athen’s news is trying to exploit her relationship for readership.

In this book, tragedy strikes. Persephone’s best friend, Lexa, finds herself teetering between life and death after an accident leaves her gravely injured. Persephone asks Hades to save Lexa’s life but he refuses. He cannot save a life with no consequence. The deal is always a life for a life. Lexa’s soul must choose whether it wants to stay on Earth, or transition to the underworld. Persephone cannot accept the lose of her friend and strikes a deal with Apollo to heal Lexa. Unfortunately, the Lexa that returns is not the same Lexa. Her soul is broken now, ripped from the underworld where is belonged. As much as she tries to adapt to life, she cannot and ultimately takes her own life. While all this is going on, Persephone is trying to master to magic and and take control of her own life. Hades wants to marry her but Persephone is constantly doubting that she is capable of becoming queen of the underworld.

To be honest, I liked this book more than the first one but for very different reasons. I thought Persephone’s character was beyond annoying in this book. She really acts like an entitled brat. Like the world really owes her something. I hate what she did to Lexa. She was so selfish. Lexa, for me, is really the star of this series. It was so sad what happened to her. Her ending up in the underworld was so heartbreaking. I listened to this as an audiobook and really enjoyed it. I don’t love that Adible charges a credit for each book in this series, so I will just have to wait until next month to listen to the next one.