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Earlier in this Persephone/Hades myth based trilogy, John (Hades) and Peirce (Persephone) made a decision that has imbalanced the forces ruling the underworld. Having finally (mostly) worked out their relationship, Peirce is suddenly faced with the possibility of losing John because of this imbalance. As she tries to rescue him and restore balance to the underworld, she’ll have to take advantage of all the connections and cool powers that come with being the queen of the underworld. And it will be awesome.

Initially, I had some trouble getting back into this series. There are some vague references to the previous books, but nothing specific enough to be helpful. At first my disorientation made Peirce and John come across as melodramatic about everything from their relationship to the danger to the underworld. As I got into the story, however, I started to remember everything I loved about the first two books. Peirce is by far one of my favorite Meg Cabot heroines (and they’re all pretty awesome). She’s sarcastic, she’s funny, and she’s a very strong character. And I mean a really strong character. Not one of those characters everyone describes as strong but who is always rescued. She’s a strong heroine who actually rescues her boyfriend at least as often as he rescues her.

I also liked that this book included some enjoyable secondary character development, including the addition of some less well known Greek mythology. It’s nice to see a large number of characters have depth and character growth, instead of just being foils for the protagonist. Like the previous books, once things got started, something was constantly happening. The fast pace was a lot of fun and I appreciated that there were several interesting issues the protagonist had to deal with. Not that awesome fights with furies aren’t enough, but the secondary plot involving her introducing John to her family really fleshed out the story for me. In addition to preserving the things I enjoyed about the previous books, this attention to all aspects of Peirce’s life made this book a great conclusion to the trilogy.

This review first published on Doing Dewey.