Asphodel by Lauren Hammond

Asphodel by Lauren Hammond
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Synopsis

Hades is lonely and bored ruling the underworld. Zeus has promised him a wife, but has refused to actually give her to him.


Review

I apologize for the very short synopsis, but I wasn't able to make it more than 50 pages in to the novel.

I was drawn to Aspodel by the cover and the premise of the story. I love retold or modernized myths, and this one looked interesting. Unfortunately, the writing was so poor that I gave up searching for the plot. The author uses words incorrectly and in the wrong tense constantly, and her use of really bad metaphors was irritating.

Below are a few passages:

"A man lied in the middle of the street. His limbs were twisted and broken and blood oozed from every opening on the man's face."

"Through the centuries, the tasks of running his realm had become tedious and repetitive to Hades. The task of damning the souls that had crossed the river Styx into his domain was becoming tiresome for the deceitful king."

"Hades glared at the boy pre-adult boy, whose hazel eyes glistened with tears. Seconds later, Hades disappeared, reappearing in front of the boy. Fear crept up the mortal's spine and he stiffened, unable to move. Then he started shaking. Hades examined him, hoping to scorch him with his gaze. Rage bubbled inside of the might God and Hades boomed, "Aren't you a man?" The boy lowered his head and Hades blanched as he sniffed. But the boy did not answer."


My Recommendation

While I saw promise in the book before I opened, I was very disappointed in the writing. The novel feels like it was written by a a very young, new writer. I looked into the author, Lauren Hammond, and it appears that she has written several books. I'm not sure if the rest of her body of work follows this example, but I will not search out more of her books to check.

I give it 1/5 - Not worth the effort