This book was a delight and I read it one sitting! Started on audiobook while cleaning and then sat down with the earc to finish! Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the advanced copies!

I have always enjoyed the myth of Psyche and Eros and overcoming trials and tribulations for your love. Like suffering together or supporting your partner through the rough patches. Of course their "rough patch" goes to the extreme that hopefully you or I never experience!
I wasn't sure at first how I was going to like the Trojan War setting for this story. I had to pause and look up if that was really when this myth took place in Ovid's account. But the more it unraveled, I really enjoyed that setting for this myth. All of that is going on and it is chaotic and Psyche and Eros find themselves amidst their own chaos.
I enjoyed some of the asides the characters made like Psyche mentioning Ovid's poetry and account of their story that was evolved beyond the truth. It clued me into the overall context of when Psyche and Eros might have been reflecting on their relationship's beginning and telling their story how it really happened in McNamara's version.
Also would like to mention that it really tugged at my heart how much McNamara overshadowed what was going to happen to Iphigenia. Devastating! Made it all the more impactful for me.

I think if you're looking for something that's close to the original story, maybe this isn't for you. I am a Greek Mythology girly so I was hoping for that, however after I'd read a few reviews, I mentally prepared myself for that not being the case. I think it's okay that it didn't go that route, but just prepare for the differences. Once you do, I think there's a lot to love about this book and the homages to the original story it makes. It's romantic to its core and that's felt throughout, which I think is the most important piece of the story. Where I ran into some problems were just a few of the liberties the author decided to take. I wasn't a fan of some of the narrative choices, but overall this wasn't a bad read!

Psyche and Eros summons Lore Olympus in this romantic Greek retelling of Cupid and warrior princess Psyche. Set in Ancient Greece, Luna McNamara weaves the story of how Eros met Psyche–from the formation of the gods to the princess born to slay monsters. One can’t help but fall for the characters when Eros, upon first looking at Psyche, whispers a hilariously doomed “fuck.” A lighthearted book that gives readers a glimpse into the gendered world of Olympian gods by adding a little bit of a sociological flavor to ancient mythological magic.

By now, I’ve read heaps of retellings and novels inspired by Greek mythology, including The Song of Achilles, Atalanta, and Clytemnestra. I knew this particular one was billed as a love story, though I don’t think I altered my expectations enough beforehand; I thought it would be much more solemn. Additionally, while authors take liberties with all of these retellings, other reviews have noted that Psyche and Eros is more reworked that most. McNamara does address her changes in the author’s note, so I would treat that as a disclaimer.

I didn’t have issues with the writing style. I highlighted many pretty lines, though they veered into feeling heavy-handed, especially since the subjects were otherwise sidelined. I was interested in Psyche developing alongside her prophecy, though I don’t think it lived up to its potential. Again, I’m not very familiar with the original story, but her broad disdain of “feminine” pursuits, especially romance and marriage, was unappealing—especially since she then fell so quickly in love with Eros.

Eros’s point-of-view was more enjoyable. His development seemed very natural, and although his timeline spanned centuries more than Psyche's, it was more nuanced. He was sweet, albeit very misguided and naive, and his affections drove the central relationship. I wouldn’t have minded if the entire novel revolved around his perspective.

If you’re looking for a novel reminiscent of the retellings I mentioned above, this novel isn’t for you. If you’re looking for a lighter take without accuracy as a requirement, then Psyche and Eros is worth a shot.

I've read a great deal of mythology in the past, but somehow I wasn't completely aware of the full story of Psyche and Eros. What a heartbreakingly beautiful love story it is.

This story gives the reader the full back story of both characters and how the eventually cross paths and fall for one another. It's good to see the overlap from other mythology I've read previously to see how it all ties together. I'm always intrigued by it.

If you're a reader who enjoys Greek mythology like myself, you may want to give this one a try. I recommend it with no hesitation. Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the advanced copy of this book.

I keep telling myself that I need to take a break from myth retellings... and I think this may put me over the edge to actually doing it. While the story was entertaining and the pacing was well done... I found myself annoyed by the tropes and traits that I saw repeating themselves.

It wasn't bad! It just wasn't everything for me.

I really enjoyed this story and all the characters! The story was full of adventure and a sweet love story. It is dual POV which I always love since it add so much background and information to both characters. Psyche and Eros were both well developed and I enjoyed reading how the story progressed. The book is full of familiar characters, both gods and mortals, and it was interesting to see how the author wove them into this story.

I didn’t know much about the myth of Psyche and Eros going into this book, and so I can’t comment about on how it compares to the original.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC I’m exchange for an honest review.

I don't read greek retelling very often, it's not really my genre. However, this book makes me want to explore the genre more. As someone who loves a strong female main characters who can fight, this book was perfect for me.

I found sometimes that the pacing of the plot could pull me out of the story. But overall I was entertained and I would recommend this book to other people who enjoy greek retellings/ fantasy books.

Thank you so much to net galley and William Marrow for this ARC!

I really do enjoy Greek retellings, though I don't get around to reading as many of them as I could be. Last year I read "Electric Idol," which was ALSO an [albeit quite loose] Eros & Psyche retelling and, while I did love it for a myriad of reasons, I couldn't help but wish there was a bit more to it. And now here we have Psyche and Eros.... which, while it certainly succeeds on the grounds of there being "more" to it, it flounders a bit in some other [critical] areas. While I enjoyed the story overall, there were a number of creative liberties taken regarding the original source material and while some changes worked, others did not. Moreover, in both instances, the author didn't do too much in providing an explanation as to why or how these changes propelled the story forward in a new or interesting way. I also didn't really care for how heavy-handed it was in making Psyche a warrior; I don't read a lot of historical romance, but it bugged me that it was either this (meaning masculine activities) or that (activities deemed feminine) for her, with little to no gray area in-between. Overall, I understand that this is a debut work so I'm opened-minded toward whatever else the author has in store next!

Psyche and Eros are my choice Greek myth couple so I am always excited to read about them in a market that is over-saturated with Persephone and Hades. This book takes a lot of liberties and doesn't stick to the source material but, I didn't really mind as I was still entertained. The plot was interesting and I enjoyed the writing style. The only reason I didn't rate it higher was that there were some parts that dragged (mostly the part about the war/Troy) and the ending wasn't as rewarding as the source material so it felt like a letdown.

Besides the twisting of the original myth, I actually quite enjoyed the first 15% of the story. I was quite open to taking liberties with what we traditionally know about Psyche and Eros.

My major qualms with the story are that it first transgresses the foundations of Greek myth storytelling, so it barely feels like a Greek story. Psyche in this story, for as much as she is a girl boss, is kind of an idiot. She's so overly impudent in the face of gods but faces little to no retaliation. She also feels like a girl from the 21st century. Eros lacks any true dimensionality to his character -- he barely feels like an ancient god and he's also an idiot. Also, there is no chemistry between them, like at all.

I also feel like this story can't decide what it wants to be -- a love story, an adventure, or a moral...it hops from one theme to the next, causing the story's organizational structure to quickly unravel. Like why was Psyche hopping in and out of the Trojan War...and speaking of the Trojan War, there are so many details and character appearances that go against the war's timeline and I just don't understand the purpose of focusing on it. There is so much name-dropping of random heroes which gets tiring real fast. IDK, the themes just felt mishandled which is disappointing because the early allusions to them showed great promise for the rest of the story.

Also, there's a lack of genuine emotion in the story. The losses Psyche faces seem so artificially contrived and forced that it barely does anything for the plot, especially when we don't really see her grieve over them.

I didn't really have much knowledge about Psyche and Eros' story, but the premise of this book got me interested. I enjoyed the writing and the slowburn story of a mortal princess and the God of love and desire. I was a very good, character driven retelling and I really enjoyed that the majority of the perspective was from Psyche.

Psyche and Eros is exactly the mythology retelling I needed. I was craving a romance and this story is so deftly told. Told in alternating chapters we get the first person perspective of Psyche and Eros through their doomed love story.

The writing was really great, and the depth of the characters kept me hooked. There were a lot of interweaving myths like the Trojan War, Atalanta, Hades and Persephone, but it helped root the dilemmas of Psyche and Eros and gave me a broader understanding of Greek mythology. I never thought it was hard to follow, and especially liked the in depth background given to Eros. I always thought of Eros as the son of Aphrodite, but in actuality, he has been around a lot longer? I didn't know that!

All in all, enjoyable. Slow in some parts.

I love a good Greek mythology retelling and the story of Psyche and Eros was captivating.

Luna created a beautiful enthralling tale of mystery, adventure and suspense intertwined with romance between star crossed lovers in the world ruled by Gods.

I wasn’t all too familiar with the myth behind Eros, the God of Desire and Psyche, Goddess of the Soul, so with that being said it was fun to learn more about their story. Their story overlaps with the Trojan War, so there’s many familiar faces.

This was a good paced story, nothing felt out of place with the storyline and I enjoyed the humor woven between the reimagining of these Gods. The character development with both main characters was interesting to watch unfold. If you’re a fan of Greek mythology, and enjoyed the books like Circe and Ariadne you’ll like this one. It makes me excited to see what LM writes next.

Read if you like:
Greek mythology reimagining, forced proximity, cursed Gods, fiery FMC, star crossed lovers, adventure, quests, tasteful romance, multiple POVs

I went into this expecting to get a historical romance with some feminist themes and that is exactly what I got! I am not 100% familiar with the original myth of Psyche and Eros and maybe that hindered my overall enjoyment, but were for it not for the mentions of other Greek gods, it would have felt like a typical romance. Although this novel is in dual perspective, I enjoyed Eros' chapters a lot more - and maybe this is due to the fact that he had more of a mythos vibe to his voice? I think I would have rather had this story told entirely from his perspective and would have found it more romantic perhaps for him to tell the tale of his lover rescuing him. As for the more feminist themes of the novel, I don't think it really pushed for anything new (Psyche is very much a not like other girls and will train in combat over sewing) but I did find her to be somewhat interesting, especially when she discussed a woman's "role" to marriage at the beginning of the novel. Alas, I did find their romance to feel extremely quick and it hindered my overall enjoyment of the novel.

There is something about a retelling of a Greek myth that gets me every time. Maybe it is because in my eyes, this is like reading the OG fantasy story. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This is the retelling of Psyche and Eros. Eros is the god of desire. Psyche is a woman born with the destiny to take down a monster that even the gods are afraid of. Psyche has grown up her whole life with this intention in mind. She has trained to be a fighter with her father's me. She doesn't realize that she may be treated differently as a woman until her parents start talking about marriage. She then realizes that even though she is supposed to be a monster killer, she is still a pawn to her parents.

Eros has realized over the centuries that his arrows do not have the desired effect he wants them to have. Even though mortals are hit with the to feel desire, he doesn't understand why a woman cheating on her husband is a bad thing or what love actually is. Aphrodite tasks him with shooting Psyche with an arrow because she feels that Psyche has dissed her as all of the gods do. She curses the arrow to where Psyche will fall in love with the first person she lays eyes on once she is hit and when that person looks back at her, they will vanish from her sight. Somehow Eros fumbles when shooting this arrow and ends up getting shot himself and who do you think he sees when he opens his eyes? Psyche.

He starts to realize what pinning after someone means. He agonizes over how to interact with Psyche but knows that he can't. Through other friends helping him, he ends up getting Psyche to his house under the guise that she is searching for the monster that she is supposed to kill. She meets Eros at night and finds out that he is her husband. The only thing he asks of her is that she not try to see his face during the day. He lets her know that there is a curse but lies about the details.

This is the story of her betraying that trust and the consequences of her actions. Through all of this, they realize that despite the curse, they do in fact love each other and will move the Earth to find a way back to each other.

I really liked the different POVs in this book and all of the interactions that Psyche had with different gods and goddesses. I would recommend this book to a friend. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Psyche and Eros is a "feminist" retelling of the original Greek myth. That's it, that's the synopsis.

This started off really strong for me and then unfortunately just kind of landed into "meh" territory. One of my pet peeves is all of the retellings that are heralded as "feminist" when they sort of...aren't? In this particular retelling, Psyche is a warrior, trained by Atalanta. I was really excited to see how she would take agency in her myth and be a true warrior...unfortunately this just didn't really occur. She is not an incredibly likeable character throughout the book.

I don't know traditional Greek mythology well enough to comment on this myth's authenticity and honestly I often don't care about how closely it matches the original myths when these are meant to be retellings.

I did like the dual POV and I honestly think I preferred when Psyche and Eros weren't on page together which probably isn't a great sign for this retelling since this is one of the happy myths. This was probably more of a 3.5 star for me but I'm rounding up for Goodreads.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley.

Psyche and Eros is a retelling of the classic Greek Myth. In a prophecy before the was born, it is said that Psyche will defeat a monster feared by the gods. She spends her entire upbringing being raised as a boy by her father, the King of Mycenae. When she angers the goddess of love, Aphrodite, Eros is sent to deliver a curse. However, by mistake, Eros pricks himself on the arrow that was meant to deliver the curse. Now Eros is in love with Psyche but the moment their eyes meet, they will be torn apart. Through different events and chance encounters, the two are pushed through an epic story of love and heroism.

I found myself pulled into this book and I had a hard time taking myself out of it! Reading through the eyes of Psyche was such a interesting take. She found ways in her life that women were treated terribly by society and the rules that constrained them. I liked how much of a feminist tilt this book had to show that women yearn to be more than what people want them to be. It was also great to read both sides of the story by having multiple points of view. I found myself really enjoying Eros and how he grew from a god who dealt with humanity, to really understanding that they weren't so different. He really began to see humans in a different light and it lead him to really learning how to love Psyche for who she was. There were a couple of changes to the history and the myths, but the author does a really great job of explaining why she took certain liberties in her authors note at the end of the book.

I definitely recommend this book to those who love retellings of myths, love the "love conquers all" ideal, or those who are just looking for a romance that will pull you in until the end.

What a great story!
I love a good Greek mythology re-telling and Luna McNamara did a great job!

The writing was poetic with modern story-telling. This is wonderful slow burn love-story of a mortal princess and the God of love and desire. I enjoyed how she pulled in commonly know Greek Gods/Godesses and the lesser known.

I am not familiar with the original tale, so I read this as a historical fiction without context. That said - DAMN this novel is painfully slow paced. Like, takes slow burn and drags it down slower. I really wanted to enjoy, especially with how complex Eros is as a character and how Psyche tries to subvert the expected "women's room" concepts of the era, but this novel just dragged. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.