Lore byAlexandra Bracken
Published January 5, 2021
Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man–now a god–responsible for their deaths.
Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.
The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to bind her fate to Athena’s and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost–and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.
Other than Percy Jackson, I don’t think I’ve taken the plunge into Greek mythology based books. Being Greek I find myself to be hyper-critical but I got this in my first OwlCrate of 2021 and I loved everything that came with it so I decided to take the leap. This book was a really cool concept. And I think I enjoyed it because it didn’t go too deep into the Gods and Goddesses which is where I find that mythology books could fall short for me. But the idea of mortals taking God’s powers is so interesting to me.
So the Agon happens every seven years, where Gods and Goddesses walk the earth as mortals, and if they get killed the mortal who killed them obtain the God/Goddess’ powers and then becomes the New God. Melora (Lore) is the last of the Perseous line and has kind of left the world of Gods and Goddesses behind. She kept a low profile and hid for years until she comes face to face with an old friend, Castor. And if that wasn’t enough, when Lore heads home from her encounter with Castor who warns her that Ares is looking for her in hopes to jump start his plan to end the Agon and rule everything, she finds and almost dead Athena at her doorstep, binding their fates together, their journey to bring down Ares.
So I love the premise of this book and I even loved a lot of the plot but it fell flat a bit for me in terms of this just dragging every now and then, I found some of the flashback chapters mostly filler and not really useful to the progression of the story. Especially towards the end of the book, things were really cranking and BAM a flashback. I think I actually said “OH COME ON!” one time. I felt like there was a lot in there that was just info dumps and made the book feel a bit more dense than it had to be.
Other than that, this was great. I loved the portrayal of the God’s and Goddesses. Lore’s inner conflict and just general growth was great. And I really liked the action and the plot twitsts that were in here. Were they like INSANE PLOT TWIST no, but they fit really well into the story. I did feel a little let down by the ending but for it being a stand alone (which I surprisingly don’t read enough of) I think it got wrapped up as best as it could.
I would seriously recommend this book if you’re looking for a cool twist on mythology.
3.5/5 Stars
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