This a great angle to Greek mythology. While it can be a little redundant, the story itself is fabulous.

I've always enjoyed Greek and Roman mythology and have read a few retellings of Persephone's tale but usually it has been a Persephone & Hades romance, so it was refreshing to have this story from the mother/daughter perspectives. The story is told in first person from both Demeter's and Core's (Persephone's) POV. The first part of the book belongs to Demeter and starts further back than most stories go with the Titans and Demeter and her siblings before Core. Demeter recounts her life, relationships, and tells of her close bond to her daughter until her daughter goes missing. Core then picks up the narration in the second part, but goes back to tell of some of the events from her perspective. Some readers may find it redundant, but I thought it was interesting to see the events from a different angle and fill in some of the details that Demeter wouldn't know. The third part of the tale alternates both narrators and continues the part of the tale that is more familiar to those that know this myth. I also appreciated that the story did not over-romanticize the Hades/Persephone relationship. The prose is well written, and though I wouldn't call it fast-paced, moves along pretty well. This should be on the to-be-read list for anyone who enjoys mythological retellings or a bit of dysfunctional family drama--just heed the content warning for anyone unfamiliar with the myth.
I received advanced access to this book thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Sourcebooks Landmark) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

I loved that this focused on both Demeter and Persephone both. It gave so much nuance to the story. Overall, it was a really fantastic take on a well-known tale.

I wanted to love this book more than I did, but the pacing was so slow for most of the book only for the ending to be rushed right when I felt like there was more I wanted to read.

Demeter’s story was a little too redundant and Core’s story repeated a lot of the same happenings that we’d already seen in Demeter’s. This book was separated into multiple parts, but I feel like a dual POV approach would’ve been a better fit for the entirety of this book.

I wish I would’ve gotten a little bit more of Hades and Persephone when things got more interesting and the problems “resolved” so I am very sad of the rushed ending.

This was a really compelling retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, told firstly from the point of view of Demeter, who I feel like we don’t often hear from, other than the typical controlling mother trope.
Romantic and brutal both, the author breathes fresh life into Persephone and Demeter’s stories.
I also found the section on the underworld far richer than many others have made it.
Highly enjoyable.
Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital arc.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

*Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

What a stunning book. Beautifully written, capturing the emotions of Demeter and Core brilliantly. Whilst a little heavy in some points, this really was fantastic book in Greek mythology fiction, up there with the likes of Madeline Miller

In "Daughters of Olympus," Hannah Lynn, weaves a spellbinding narrative that transports readers into the heart of Greek mythology, exploring the intricate relationship between a mother and daughter torn apart by the whims of the gods. With lush prose and emotional depth, this novel offers a fresh and captivating retelling of the timeless story of Persephone and Demeter.

At the center of the tale is Demeter, a goddess of life who finds herself living in half-existence after a devastating act of violence shatters her world. Hiding among the grasses and wildflowers, Demeter's only solace is her daughter, Core, who will one day become known as Persephone. Their bond is unbreakable, yet as Core grows, she craves freedom and independence, longing to carve out a life of her own beyond the confines of Olympus.

As Core's desires lead her down a path of self-discovery, she catches the eye of a powerful god, setting into motion a chain of events that will forever alter the course of their lives. When Hades kidnaps Core and takes her to the Underworld, she realizes she may have a chance to reclaim the agency and freedom she so desperately seeks. However, her mother, Demeter, will stop at nothing to bring her daughter back, even if it means unleashing chaos upon the mortal world.

"Daughters of Olympus" is a story of love, sacrifice, and the enduring bond between mother and daughter. As Demeter and Core navigate the complexities of their relationship and the machinations of the gods, they ultimately find themselves at odds with each other, each willing to risk everything for what they hold most dear. Through their struggles, they shape the world in ways they never imagined, leaving an indelible mark on the tapestry of Greek mythology.

Fans of Madeleine Miller and Claire Heywood will delight in the lush storytelling and emotional depth of "Daughters of Olympus." With its compelling characters, richly imagined world, and timeless themes, this novel is sure to captivate readers from beginning to end. Whether you're a longtime aficionado of Greek mythology or simply love a tale of love and redemption, this book is not to be missed.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I didn’t really enjoy the first half with Demeter’s POV. I felt like there was a lot of narrating myths to me and the characters felt flat. Even the beginning of the second half with Core’s POV felt repetitive since it again went over events we had already seen. It might’ve been stronger with the POVs mixed. It wasn’t until Hades came into the picture that I started to get interested. I really enjoyed how Hades and Persephone’s relationship evolved and that it took time for it to develop. The ending was great, if a bit rushed. Overall, not my favorite but I do love me a Hades & Persephone story! Also loved seeing Orpheus!

Persephone’s/Core’s story is so often told from the viewpoint of her relationship with Hades but in this retelling her relationship with her mother took centre stage. This is a beautiful and harrowing take on grief and love and how protection can become a prison. We see each woman fully come into her power after centuries of repressing who they are and all they can be.

The writing is beautiful and ethereal. Hannah Lynn made Olympus and Siphone and the Underworld come alive in such a tangible way. I was fully immersed in the world.

Because we spend so much time with Demeter and then Persephone/Core we get to know and understand each woman individually. We get to experience the same thing from two different perspectives but instead of feeling repetitive it felt essential because we see what the women hide from each other, we see how they truly felt in the moment vs. how the other perceived it.

While some of the romance felt rushed. Ione and Core’s love unfolded so beautifully. 4.5 stars but rounded to 5.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book at 48%. I did not look up content warnings prior to reading and there was far too much triggering content for me.

The book itself up to this point had felt slow despite many tragic events having taken place and I was not invested in the characters at all.

Oh my god, I loved this book. I cannot wait for a physical copy. I think this might be my favorite retelling of Hannah's so far. Core and Demeter's emotions are so raw and beautiful and Demeter's desperate love for her daughter will pierce your heart. If you liked any of Hannah's other books or if you are a fan of Jennifer Saint or Madeline Miller's writing, read this!

🌺 🏛️ 𝔻𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕆𝕝𝕪𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕤 🏛️🌻

Demeter wasn’t always afraid. For countless years after being freed from her father’s prison, she looked upon the world and the life in it with wonder and awe. It wasn’t until after fate dealt her one cruel blow after another that she chose to become a recluse in order to protect her greatest treasure, her daughter Core.

…𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵,

Core dreams of freedom, but fears what that would do to the fragile mother she adores. After centuries of seclusion, Demeter begins to let Core travel the world on the condition that she return each night. When the unthinkable happens, and Core ends up trapped in the Underworld, Demeter will find a strength she thought was lost in order to punish Heaven and Earth until her daughter is returned.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know how much the romance angle of Persephone and Hades has blown up over the last few years. In a lot of these retellings, Demeter is cast as a villain, the selfish and controlling mother who doesn’t care about her daughter’s happiness. When I heard that this book was coming out I was honestly ecstatic that Demeter was finally getting a voice.

One thing I feel this author does remarkably well is multiple perspectives, which is another reason I was excited for this book. The first half is told from Demeter’s POV, and reader beware, it was not an easy read. Demeter’s mythos is full of pain and brutality that will break your heart, and I was truly impressed with the authors ability to tell her story in a way that made it impossible for me to hold on to old perceptions, replacing them with a massive amount of sympathy instead.

Persephone’s perspective is such as huge contrast to her mother’s, it’s easy to forget it’s written by the same author. As cliche as it sounds, Persephone is quite literally a breath of fresh air. I got lost in her story and the pages just flew by. I will NOT give away any spoilers, but there was a new twist that is completely original, and I loved every second of it.

After I finished reading, I went and hugged my kiddos, and then downloaded the rest of the authors Grecian Women series off of KU. I really enjoyed this book and if, like me, feminist retellings are something you’re into, you should definitely consider reading. Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pub Date: July 9, 2024

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebook Landmark for this free e-reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I will automatically be intrigued by anything that has to do with Greek mythology. Especially if it centers around a strong female.

In this book you have Demeter, one of the Olympians who was birthed from the Titans. As well as her daughter Core. You get alternating points of view from both of them throughout the book.

At the center the book is about the relationship between mother and daughter and the sacrifices each of them has to make in order to help and protect the other.

This book was full of such beautiful and vivid descriptions. And I really love the fact that the tone of this book was also reflected in the nature and things surrounding the people. When you're dealing with two goddesses of spring that felt really poetic and just enhanced the story.

I absolutely flew through the first half of this book and I could not put it down. There was a little section in the middle of that. Felt a little like it dragged for me personally, but then at the end it was once again action-packed.

It does deal heavily with feelings of grief and the emotions that go with that. So definitely keep that in mind if you pick up this book.

First I would like to thank the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book. The pace of the book for me was a little slow for my liking, however it had its own unique touch to the timeless story of Core. Both Core and Demeter struggle with grief in their own ways, Demeter trying only to protect her daughter from the wrath of the gods and the pain she have experienced at their hand tried to hide Core away. Core on the other hand searching for her identity and a life of freedom end ups falling in love and never wanting to be trapped again takes a trip to the underworld. Will Demeter find Core? Will Core leave the underworld? Read and find out.

“It is easy to ignore the passage of time if leaves never fall, and hair never grows white.”

All the stars in the universe. 5 is not nearly enough. Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks, and Hannah Lynn for providing me with an eARC to review!

I first came across Hannah Lynn back exactly a year ago in March 2023 when, on an inconspicuous day of scrolling through audiobook apps by the beach, I found ‘Athena’s Child’ on Storytel. I was intrigued - a Medusa retelling that I had not heard of? I immediately started listening. It was not long after that I realized that I had come across something incredibly special. Soon after, I devoured A Spartan’s Sorrow and Queens of Themyscira - the latter in particular having held my heart and soul captive for the length of its pages and beyond. This is all to say that since the day I first came across Hannah Lynn, I have been captivated by her words, her worlds, and her stories, in ways that I will confidently say I have not experienced often before.

I have spent months waiting for my next Greek Mythology fix from Lynn, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when I found out about Daughters of Olympus, I was refreshing NetGalley and my email every two business seconds just waiting for that approval - and when it came? I dropped everything I was doing. There was a certain fear that I would not come to enjoy Daughters of Olympus as I had its predecessors, I often worry that I set expectations far too high, and for Daughters of Olympus, indeed they were. Yet all those expectations were met and much much more.

Daughters of Olympus tells the story of Demeter and the famed Goddess of the underworld, Persephone (who for the greater part of this novel, is known as Core, her first given name). And yet where all retellings often fall short, Lynn delivers. In 83 short chapters, Lynn traces Demeter and Core’s beginnings; their origins, how they became who they are, and why. Hades comes near the end, and even then, Demeter and Core remain the focal points. Where all other retellings focus on Persephone’s abduction into the underworld, Lynn gives us a full account of her life before, offering a new, refreshing, and raw angle to her story, and that of her mother’s.

Lynn’s pen is magic, and I do not say so with hyperbole. There is a certain ethereal quality to her writing that is only possessed by those who tell a story from the heart; those who tell a story to a fellow heart. I was in a trance from the first page - Lynn had grasped my attention and I would not allow it to be let go. Through a first-person recollection, the reader is immediately invited into the deepest crevices of Demeter’s mind - and later, Core’s - we are privy to every thought, feeling, reservation, and fear in the Goddess’ mind. And so in a way that is often difficult to achieve with so many other retellings that tend to give their titular deities and heroes a sense of grandiose that so often puts the reader at arm’s length from them, the reader becomes the character.

I think it is a cop-out to compare every great mythological retelling to Madeline Miller’s Circe - and I will admit, I have done so many times in the past when I aimed to convey how great a book was - but this time around I will say something different: I believe in many ways, Daughters of Olympus surpasses Circe; the poetic writing, the introspectiveness, the yearning, the rawness of it all, and the offering of a completely new angle to these seemingly known tales are but a few traits that make this story truly one of a kind. It boggles me that Hannah Lynn and this series of Greek Mythology retellings are not up there on the best-seller shelves all over the world.

The way love, loss, grief, and motherhood are anatomized through words in Daughters of Olympus was simply beautifully touching. There is a certain weight to each word that is at once heavy, raw, and honest, and I could not get enough. Witnessing these immortal characters grow and seeing the fault lines crack in some of these ‘invincible’ Olympians was truly a breath of fresh air. There is so much complexity within these pages that I already cannot wait to go back and read them all over again, and I cannot wait to listen to the audiobook when it’s out - hopefully. Also, A vulnerable Zeus? Yep, loved every second of it. Without spoiling much, I also loved how Hades was portrayed. If I were to be nit-picky, I would say I wish we had learnt more about Despoina, Demeter’s other daughter, but perhaps that is a story for another day (or novel?).

I already cannot wait for Lynn’s next masterpiece. Daughters of Olympus is a book that will linger within me for long.

Beautiful novel, I really loved it! The characters were described in a way that seemed so realistic and I enjoyed the pacing of this novel.

I really liked Core's story and wish the book was more about her. Demeter's story got redundant. jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Demeter, the goddess of harvest and agriculture, did not live an easy life. Swallowed at birth by her father Cronus along with her siblings, she grew up in the darkness of her father's belly until freed by her brother Zeus. Hannah Lynn has given Demeter a voice in her novel Daughters of Olympus. In the first half of the novel, we finally get to hear the story of the goddess's life from her point of view, both good and bad. The second half of the book is told from the point of view of Core, the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Sheltered from the world by her mother, Core knew nothing of the world's pain, of true love or loss. That all changes when she falls in love with a mortal. After the death of her mortal lover, she is whisked into the Underworld by Hades, where she becomes Persephone, a true goddess, not a shadow of her mother. The novel's final part is told from both goddess's points of view.

The novel Daughters of Olympus delves into universal themes of love, loss, and the struggles of women, be they goddesses or mortals, in a world dominated by men. Demeter's story is one of resilience, as she endures countless hardships at the hands of her brothers, eventually finding her strength. Her love for her children is boundless. On the other hand, Core is a shy girl living in her mother's shadow, always seeking her approval. However, when given the opportunity, she discovers her potential and identity. The experiences of these two goddesses resonate with women from all walks of life. If you are passionate about Greek mythology, this novel is a must-read!

Trigger warnings: rape, child loss, abduction, death

I've always been interested in Greek mythology which is why I was interested in this book. It's not something I would typically read but I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading more like it. The Author, Hannah Lynn, is a great storyteller and this book was a breeze to read. I tend to get lost in these types of stories but not this one. It was told beautifully. The descriptions of nature and the landscapes were amazing. Out of my wheelhouse but so happy I gave it a try and loved it. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.