Plot or Premise

The Olympic gods still rule Earth, and once every hundred years, they choose champions to compete in the Crucible to see whose patron will lead the Gods for the next 100 years.

What I Liked

The trial of the Crucible is covered by this first book in the series instead of being spread out across multiple novels. In addition, the love interests ensure that nobody mistakes this for Percy Jackson stories aimed at a younger audience. Hades is awesome, while most of the rest of the Gods are caricatures. The trials are generally good throughout, with relatively realistic challenges and solutions.

What I Didn’t Like

When we first meet Lyra, I thought she was in her teens. Everything about her screams mid- to late- teens. A few chapters in, it reveals she’s 23. Wait, what? She is nowhere near streetsmart enough for 23, particularly with the life she’s been living and work she has been doing. Way too naïve. Equally, Lyra’s supposed curse is never fully explained, including how her existing friends “show up” for her during the Crucible but had never done so before, and she makes a couple of new friends relatively easily, but had never been able to before either?

The Bottom Line

Gods, have you met death yet?