Modern retelling of the story of Persephone (Kore), and how she came to be in the Underworld. I won't set it up more than that. That's the bones you need.
This has one of the best, quietest and clear last paragraphs of a book I've read in ages. Simple and calm but powerful.
It's often hard to read characters that change a lot over the course of a book and them to not feel too fatally different, to the point you can no longer feel with them or identify with them; it's a common fault in books I read: a protagonist will become so much better/stronger/more powerful that whilst I am happy at her growth and wherever the end leaves her, I can no longer travel with her, she's like a friend grown well apart from me. You can say you knew her well, once. This book doesn't do that. Over the course of it, Corey changes a lot, but I was with her every step, and by the end, I still knew her. That's so important in a book, that it not leave you lonely.
Also, the blurb on the back makes it seem like a romance. It has a love interest in it, but it's mostly about friendship and manipulation. Perceptions, how we don't know people as we thought we did, either from afar or in life. It's also about generosity.
So read on for Hades, Hermes, The Furies (who play a large role and are wonderfully painted), The Boatman Charon, The Fates, and Eris the Lady of Discord and Strife (ever not what's expected). More, but they are the main mythic characters.
Ate this, lush like the pomegranates it talks of, in a very short time between hellish busy work days in a very hot kitchen in a heatwave. Lovely rest it was.
Recommended.
(a much shorter version of this review on my Goodreads feed.)
