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The Dark Wife

von Sarah Diemer

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2801193,767 (3.58)5
Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth.Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want-except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice. Zeus calls Hades "lord" of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny. But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.… (mehr)
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I’ve always loved mythology. Growing up, I did a lot of research about Egyptian myths, but as time passed I became increasingly familiar with Greek mythology. I’m very proficient in Greek mythology and can carry a conversation about this stuff with anybody really. I know quite a few of the myths and details, and can name quite a few of the gods both major and minor.

I was on the hunt for a few indie books about a year ago, and was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this book in a list of recommendations. It was described as ‘myth retelling’, which we’d talked about a lot in my University classes in third year. So, naturally, I bought it.

And then proceeded to read it in literally a day.

Let’s give a bit of background: the original myth of Persephone and Hades says that Persephone was stolen by Hades and forced to the Underworld. After negotiations with Olympus and a marriage to the Lord of the Underworld, Persephone agreed to spend six months with her husband in the Underworld, and another six on Earth with her family. The story explains why we have winter – Persephone is the Goddess of Spring, so with her down in the Underworld, the world freezes over into winter. When she returns, spring blooms again. She is the illustrious and kind Queen of the Underworld, and Diemer’s novel is told completely through her point of view.

Oh, and Hades is a woman.

That’s right, the ‘lord’ of the Underworld is actually a very beautiful woman, and Persephone isn’t stolen away, rather she willingly goes to escape a fate she thinks is worse than death – having to live alongside Zeus on Olympus.

Why is this terrible? I’m glad you asked.

There’s a very common joke with people who know Greek mythology that everything that happens is all Zeus’s fault. In this novel, this is taken to a whole new level. In common Greek myths, Zeus is the King of the Gods, who does whatever (and whoever) he pleases. He’s fathered demigods and monsters alike, and he, as said in the novel, takes whatever he wants coz he’s the ruler. Persephone hates him, for something he did that wronged her terribly in the past. And because of this, she refuses to even be anywhere near him. Zeus in this narrative is described as what he probably would have been – an arrogant selfish man, hellbent on getting his way at every turn. He spreads lies about other gods to make them less favourable; he forces himself on Demeter and then tries to do the same with her daughter (who is also his daughter); at a point, he even tries to orchestrate Hades’s murder.

Persephone runs away from all this, and nobody can blame her really. And she does it all to find her own happiness and make her own destiny.

Who knew that that meant that she’d end up running into the arms of a woman?

As far as myth retellings go, I think this book is spot on. It keeps to the original myths very well, with some changes towards the end that I’m sure are justified for the sake of the story. Persephone is a wonderful narrator, who is full of emotion and who leads you through the story gently, rather than with the boring tone some first person narratives tend to take. And the romance, while a slow burn (and I fucking hate slow burns) is a very satisfying one, even though it got a little cheesy towards the end. But hey, we all need some cheese in our lives sometimes!

Final rating: 4.5/5. A must read for fans of Greek mythology and LGBT literature alike. ( )
  viiemzee | Feb 20, 2023 |
I'm moving this one to presently reading as a sneak peak of the Prologue and the First Chapter came out earlier this week as a wonderful, amazing gift from herself. I'm so intrigued and curious to see where this goes. All the girls, and different characters, how people interact, and the gorgeous, silky flow of the words.

And how soon it will be when I will have the whole of it in my hands to devour whole!


----

Finished it and I love it so, so, so, much. My favorite quote is "I'm not afraid of being afraid" between Persephone and Hermes, which remind me so much of September and Ly's conversation in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making ("Be careful with me, I'm fragile," Ly Said, and September, Replied, "It's alrught. I'm not.")

I devoured this book so quickly once it was finally in my hands. I smiled at how simple and right it felt all the choice Persephone made that changed everything, and cried at her scene/choice in the Elysian Fields. I can't wait to see everything else Sarah writes. ( )
  wanderlustlover | Dec 27, 2022 |
it's not bad, but definitely too long (and that's not good, giving that there are only 250 pages). i hated persephone: she didn't have a development and she spends half book crying and crying and crying non-stop. i really loved the descriptions, but the story isn't extremely original. the love story is a bit rushed, but cute. ( )
  folkiara | Feb 2, 2021 |
This is a cute read and I recommend it, however it had some major issues that kept me from rating it higher.

The Dark Wife is an altered telling of Persephone and Hades. In this telling Persephone descends willingly to the underworld and willingly marries Hades after falling in love. Hades also happens to be female. This is a topic I'm very into and I've read several papers lately discussing the story of Persephone and how a/ we only have one version of this story and ancient Greece likely had dozens, if not 100's of versions and interpretations of this story b/ the meaning of the word "rape" when used in Greek story telling: rather than forced sexual contact, it may be more accurately read as any violent act, such as stealing away a daughter, opening us to further interpretations.

The story itself is sweet and after several weeks of dealing with people swooning over the abuse being passed off as romance in 50 Shades of Abuse it was nice to read an actual romance, in which the characters are kind to each other and do nice things for each other. The sex scene is pretty PG, so if you are afraid you aren't ready for a lesbian sex scene, you'll probably be just fine. Although, if you're hoping for heat, sorry this is all sweetness and you're going to have to look elsewhere for an NC-17 rating. Actually, the female orgasm is apparently still terrifying to the film industry, so this is probably NC-17 by their standard.

Also: puppy Cerberus.

Now that I've said the good things, let me admit the bad things.

First, there is a rape in this book, an attempted rape and mention of other rapes. It is very gently and briefly touched on, but if any mention of rape is too much for you consider this your warning. Beyond that, you are reading a book based on the Greek Gods. Zeus was an asshole. You can put 2 and 2 together here.

Second, for you grammar nazi types, there are a few errors here. I think I counted 3 that were enough to give me pause, which is really nothing, but I know it will make some of you crazy. None were so poor that they pulled me out of the story but my natural editor plucked them out, sized them up and shoved them away for later.

Third, the author is very nice to her characters. Too nice. Yes, I mentioned the rape above. The first half of the book includes this rape and sets up all the bad things that drive the rest of the action down to the underworld. If it's a spoiler to you that Persephone goes to the underworld you need to brush up on your myths. There may be a few actual spoilers in the next paragraph.

At about the half way point everything suddenly gets beyond easy. Yes, there is some build up of tension but Every. Single. Problem. gets fixed in almost a cursory way. Life threatening slip? Saved and magically not dead or changed by incident. Reason for this non-threat to the character? None that I can tell. Mob of angry villagers? Fixed almost instantly, in a way that was always available, hinted at as not possible, and then just poof, no problem. Then, spy in the ranks? Fixed in three sentences. Back to showing how much Hades and Persephone love each other. Trouble back home? Vague, off camera attempt to fix it fails. Some issues inserted here: easily fought off. Decide big, bad guy needs to come down. Defeat him with literally no mention of how it happens. Just a sort of "enough was enough" and then he's gone. Problem solved.

In some ways it's great. If you want to just read a sweet romance with the real tension resolved with a wave of an invisible magic wand so you can go back to the sweet romance you've found your book. If you think the story of Persephone and Hades should be a little grittier and real with danger lurking around the corner: this story is going to fall short.

So:
5 stars for healthy relationship
3 stars for character development and secondary characters (lots of women in this book, who are friends and like each other!)
1 star for plot, tension and build up.

I average that out to 3. Still worth the read but I just wish this story had been tighter and lived up to the hint of possibility there. ( )
  lclclauren | Sep 12, 2020 |
I really wanted to give this a higher rating, but unfortunately, the plot lacks any sort of true conflict or struggle to make the story feel worthwhile.
The Dark Wife also fails to deliver on the tension it build, Persephone does affect a few notable things, but it's far from the changes or drama I was expecting.
2/5 is the best I can give. ( )
  Kalal | May 27, 2020 |
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Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth.Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want-except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice. Zeus calls Hades "lord" of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny. But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.

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