Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Dark Wife: A Lesbian Revisionist Re-Telling of the Persephone and Hades Myth, where Hades is a Goddess!


by Sarah Diemer


"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" was published by the author, who wrote this beautiful blog post about why she was re-telling this Greek myth with a Lesbian twist.

Add your review of "The Dark Wife" in comments!

3 comments:

ivanova said...

This book sounds very interesting! I like Greek myths retold LGBT-style. I recently read Alcestis by Katherine Beutner, which is a bisexual retelling of the Alcestis myth, which also involves Persephone. It sounds like Peresephone is becoming very popular with the ladies!

Anonymous said...

This book is AWESOME. This is the story of a young goddess who doesn't let her parents make life decisions for her. She decides the course of her life. It's also a sweet and tender lesbian romance. Hades is a goddess and not at all what the myths make her out to be. It is touted as a YA book, but I'm 61 years old and loved it.

Christine said...

I read the book and though I generally liked it, I found it kind of lacking with regard to the character development. I mean I AM a huge Greek mythology nerd and that's maybe why I though "What about Persephone's powers?". I did like the interactions between Hades and Persephone and the description of the Underworld. There are no explicit scenes though some descriptions which may be too much for a pre-teen, but I guess the book is more for the 12 year old and above audience. Overall, it's a nice book with a lesbian couple where it's not about them being of the same gender, and I can recommend it, but it won't be my favorite.