I don’t know if there has been a huge swing in the direction of mythology retelling stories, or if I’m just slowly starting to find them now.
I pride myself on discovering Madeline Miller’s work, Circe and The Song of Achilles a few years back. I consumed those books with vehemence and have been on the search for more. And if you’re familiar with The Song of Achilles, you know the need for more beautiful stories, rewritten and told with eloquence and relevant accuracy. I will never not recommend that book to anyone and everyone.
Through instagram, I came across someone sharing Soul in Darkness and after reading their review, I became excited to read it myself!
Soul in Darkness is a retelling of Psyche and Cupid (Roman name aka Eros aka son of Venus aka Aphrodite). The author chose to use the gods Roman names and I read somewhere why, I just can’t find the link.
Right off the bat the book gave me A Court of Thorns and Roses and Echo North vibes, but the story stayed in ancient greek culture, landscape and time period. And it stayed true to the original story, all the details there. Which I love. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy a modern retelling. I think the books from the series A Touch of Ruin are doing a great job of that and it’s also nice to see a retelling in it’s appropriate time period, it enriches the story for me.
The (Spoiler-ish) Plot:
The first half of the story is entirely from Psyche’s POV and she is revered in her lands as the most beautiful female. Her parents were blessed by the goddess of love and beauty with a beautiful child, but the people began worshipping and giving gifts to Psyche instead of the goddess, Venus. And we all know how petty and wrathful the gods are, because she does not take it well.
We the reader don’t learn much of the details until the second half of the book when we get some POV chapters from Cupid. However, if you’re familiar with the mythology you know something is up and can start to clue in what needs to happen.
So basically, Psyche is told she has to marry a winged serpent, a monster! She will be his wife and this will be her sacrifice to save her people and the kingdom from the wrath of the goddess.
When she becomes married to the monster, she is given a life of luxury BUT she cannot see her husband and she cannot touch him, but he can touch her
I did like Psyche’s character for the most part, she’s smart and kind and has realistic reactions to what’s happening to her. And then it got to the point where I was like ‘girl, he’s not going to hurt you! Figure it out!’
I really enjoyed the story and the slow burn. The sex scenes were tasteful and not drawn out and only lasted for the middle of the book.
Near the end, when Psyche has to perform the three tasks for Venus, you get to see how much her and Cupid love each other and how she never really cared about her beauty. She just wanted someone to love her for her, and that really hit something for me and I loved exploring that theme.
And then the ending had me a little weepy. It was a beautiful conclusion to their story and I could see myself reading this book again. I highly recommend it. I read this story very quickly and gave it a 5/5 rating on goodreads.
If you read it, I would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day <3
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