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

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. 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. And because of this, she refuses to even be anywhere near him. Persephone hates him, for something he did that wronged her terribly in the past. He’s fathered demigods and monsters alike, and he, as said in the novel, takes whatever he wants coz he’s the ruler. In common Greek myths, Zeus is the King of the Gods, who does whatever (and whoever) he pleases. In this novel, this is taken to a whole new level.

There’s a very common joke with people who know Greek mythology that everything that happens is all Zeus’s fault. Why is this terrible? I’m glad you asked. 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. She is the illustrious and kind Queen of the Underworld, and Diemer’s novel is told completely through her point of view. 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. 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.

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. So, naturally, I bought it.Īnd then proceeded to read it in literally a day. It was described as ‘myth retelling’, which we’d talked about a lot in my University classes in third year. 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. I know quite a few of the myths and details, and can name quite a few of the gods both major and minor. I’m very proficient in Greek mythology and can carry a conversation about this stuff with anybody really. Growing up, I did a lot of research about Egyptian myths, but as time passed I became increasingly familiar with Greek mythology.

The dark wife by sarah diemer