"The Games Gods Play" reimagines Greek mythology into deadly competition

When I first saw the premise of The Games Gods Play, I had mixed feelings. Hades and Persephone are one of the couples in Greek Mythology I love seeing together, and it was clear the book was setting up Hades and the protagonist Lyra for a romance - and I was very concerned about how the "Persephone is his wife" fact would be handled. However, it also felt like what would happen if you crossed the Percy Jackson series with The Hunger Games trilogy, and in the end, the premise won out. And I am glad it did because this book created an interesting world full of creative challenges and action scenes that kept my heart pounding.

Not to mention, how it solved the Persephone problem was a mystery woven into the novel that left me surprised and intrigued by how it'll complete the story thread in the next book.

Lyra has had a problem with Zeus since she was born - as he cursed her to be unlovable. Her parents gave her to Hermes' Thieves Guild at the age of three, and while she's an excellent clerk, she believes she has no connections to anyone there. She passes through life believing nobody will ever care about her...until she meets Hades. However, the God of Death takes notice of her at the worst possible time as he chooses her for the Crucible, a competition that takes place once every one hundred years to determine which of the Olympians will be the King of the Gods. Hades has never competed, and it's clear he believes Lyra will be able to get him the throne.

But sparks start flying between the two, something Lyra knows should not be possible with her curse, causing this deadly game to get much more personal for both of them.

The Crucible was definitely the best part of the book. Each one of the tasks was creative and fun, even if they did have incredibly intense life-or-death stakes. I loved how you could see each of the Greek Gods' personalities within the challenges they came up with. Apollo and Artemis planned theirs together, as they are twins, and believed it was their right to do everything together. Hephaestus used automatons instead of monsters as a challenge within his. And while these are only a sample of these challenges, I felt like they were a fun way of looking at not only the domain of the gods but also how they interpreted the traits they valued most. The action within these scenes was also written spectacularly and made me feel like I was fully in the action with the champions.

The champions were also a very interesting bunch of characters. One was a teenager, most were in their twenties to thirties, while some were old enough to be ready for grandkids. For me, this is what made this book the most interesting, as it showed nobody was safe from being chosen as a Champion. They had no real say in their role in The Crucible because while they could deny the honor, the gods are petty and would choose someone to hurt them out of spite if they denied it. In addition, the winner would get a boon from the newest King and 100 years of living on Olympus. It was something that made the stakes feel very real, and I loved getting to see how it changed the different characters' motivations. I personally would have loved to have seen more from other champions, as Lyra is the sole point-of-view in the book, but I am hoping many of them will have the opportunity to come back in the next book even though the Crucible has concluded.

Lyra is also a fascinating character because she humanizes the contradictions we constantly see within the human experience. It is hard to imagine what it would be like to be cursed to be unlovable, but it becomes clear she has a caring heart, which makes the curse doubly effective. She strives to make herself useful so even if people do not care about her, they do care about what she can provide for them. And with it comes some decisions that seem contradictory: like her insistence on saving people who would kill her without a thought, or her longing for a personal connection after explaining to someone she feels nothing. She is a hot mess, and where others might see it as inconsistent, I instead saw the humanity in her that made her feel real.

Now, with how I opened this review, it makes sense to talk about the love story - however, I am not going to do that because it spoils the Persephone mystery, and I feel like it would be doing a disservice to the readers to have it out in the open. Just know, it is a fascinating take on Hades and Persephone, and Lyra's relationship with him doesn't take away from the author's take on the original myths. But that is all I can say so I don't ruin the majority of the story.

This book is a marathon, not a sprint, and it took me three weeks to get through it. But it was a fantastic three weeks, full of Greek mythology and a reimagining of the modern day if these gods were still widely worshiped. I loved watching this deadly competition, and I cannot wait to see what happens in the next book - because based on the cliffhanger, it might be even more intense.

The Games Gods Play is available through Entangled Publishing