The Dark Wife

By: Sarah Diemer

Narrated by: Veronica Giguere

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.

The Dark Wife is a YA novel, a lesbian revisionist retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth. It won the 2012 Golden Crown Literary Award for Speculative Fiction.

©2011 Sarah Diemer (P)2016 Hatching Phoenix Productions

Refreshing

I honestly think they picked the perfect narrator for this novel. More importantly, however, I was very surprised and quite happy with this new take on Greek mythology. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from this Author. 👍👍👍

Wonderful rewrite of The God Hades

Zeus is a corrupt power hungry ruler of Earth and Olympus. His daughter must rebel against him to save herself, the Earth and the Underworld. Good performance.

Slow

I liked the story but it was slow moving. I also had to increase the reading speed.

It was okay.

The story was decent enough, although a few occurrences felt like there was not enough build-up for the payoff to feel earned.

The narrator did a decent job differentiating between characters with voices, but her delivery did not have enough emotion in some places. Also, she needs to invest in a better pop filter. All throughout, one can hear mouth noises, and if that sort of thing bothers you, then I’d give this one a skip.

My gay heart is bursting

I was worried going into this that I'd be unable to finish it....I was dead wrong and I finished it within a day.

My main concern was that I'd be unable to picture Hades as a woman, but within a chapter, I got use to it and loved the creativity--- I can no longer picture Hades as anything other than a Queen.

The story is good. It warms my gay heart in the best way at moments through tender and genuine love between Hades and Persephone. There's no conflict between them, just two souls coming together again.

The ending could use some work. I was satisfied, but the story spends a great deal of time building up the conflict that when it gets down to the confrontation, it felt short and a bit anti-climatic. Some threads are left untied as well.

Overall though, it's a great retelling and I'd listen to it again. I wish there was a sequel.