Heart of Hades

I loved Thief of Spring, so I was excited to get to read the story from Hades' perspective. If you're expecting dark and brooding and maybe mean, that's not Macdonald's Hades. He puts up a good front, but inside he is a boy who expects life to hand him bad things, because that's all it's done so far. He's loved Persephone from afar for years, even though she has no memory of him when she encounters him at the strange party she was invited to. He's horrified to see her there and acts to save her, even at the risk of making her hate him. He has to.

It's fascinating to see the story from the flip side. We got Persephone's point of view in Thief of Spring. (If you haven't read that, you absolutely should.) Now we get to see what Hades was thinking during all the events of the story. And it is so sweet to see their romance blossom, and see how nervous he really was about whether Persephone could actually love him, too. I just want to hug him, because he is so broken and so precious and so deserving of good things.

And I'll tell you what, the ending from Hades' perspective just about broke me. Oh, my heart.

Please tell me we're getting a Hades take on Queen of Night!

Thanks to Booksprout and the author for the advance review copy. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.