A Touch of Darkness / A Game of Fate (Tandem Read)

Apr 22

Written By Ally Talley

Hades x Persephone #1

Hades Saga #1

By Scarlett St. Clair

*Read in Tandem*

*A Game of Fate is Hades’ perspective during A Touch of Darkness*

TheStory

Persephone, the Goddess of Spring who has yet to harness her power, is posing as a college student in the mortal realm, hiding her divinity. Everything changes when she goes to the nightclub, Nevernight, and meets Hades, God of the Underworld and one of the most powerful gods in the realm.

The chance encounter leads Persephone to unwittingly enter into a contract with Hades - create life in the Underworld or forever lose her freedom. Persephone must now confront her lack of powers while simultaneously dealing with her changing feelings for Hades. As she discovers another side to his character, their relationship deepens, and Persephone comes to the realization that she is a true goddess.

While Persephone is under no illusions about her deal with Hades, another contract of Hades’ might unravel everything they have been building together. Though it’s not only Hades secrets but also Persephone’s mother, Demeter, that could be her undoing.

TheReview

I am a HUGE fan of reading simultaneous timelines in tandem with each other. Since the Hades x Persephones series is the first published set, it holds the main storyline. The Hades Saga set follows the same timeline but from Hades’ point of view. So since it’s from Hades’ perspective, it gives insight into his thoughts and feelings but also has scenes that Persephone was not privy to in the original series.

The way the different Greek mythologies are integrated into the stories is so well done. It doesn’t throw too much information at the reader. It focuses on telling you what is important when it is important and why it is important.

It is also TRUE enemies to lovers! Persephone honestly cannot stand Hades. Especially because she believes her task of creating life in the Underworld to be utterly hopeless. Hades’ reputation has preceded him, so she can only be working with what she knows, which is the worst about Hades.

The ending is good but a little quick for my preferences. It seemed a bit like the author had to wrap it up quickly in order to maintain a page count or something. It felt a bit like a cancelled TV show, where you aren’t really satisfied with the ending.

TheTandemRead

The tandem read is good because (obviously) we get so much more information from the two different perspectives. However, I could also see why someone might not want to do the tandem read. It would still be good.

With the tandem read, you get both perspectives and more information at once.

Without the tandem read, Hades would be more mysterious. You would also be reading them in the order that they were technically intended to be read, since Hadex x Persephone was published first and the Hades Saga was published after the fact.

My one complaint about this particular tandem read is that it switches which perspective you get first for each scene. So sometimes you see Persephone’s POV on a scene first, and sometimes Hades’ POV is the first you read. I would have liked to have seen Persephone’s POV first every time because that was the original POV.