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Dark Olympus #8

ALC and ARC provided by NetGalley

Author: Katee Robert

Narrators: Alex Moorcock and Will Watt

Thanks, Sourcebooks and Dreamscape for the ARC and ALC. 

Well, the first thing I have to say is that at this point none of the books are standalones and rather episodes in the saga of Dark Olympus. You definitely need the info from the previous books to follow all that is happening now that Circe finally reached The Wall and is ready to attack the city. 

In this chapter, we follow Poseidon and Icarus. At the end of the previous book, Icarus sacrificed himself and stayed back so that Ariadne and The Minotaur could flee safely. Now, the story starts exactly at that point and Icarus is now held captive by Poseidon.

Poseidon is a gentle giant who doesn’t know what to do with the charming, manipulative Icarus in his hands. Icarus immediately reverts to seduction as this is how he has survived till now and soon succeeds, while falling himself for the tender and unexpectedly submissive Poseidon. They eventually fall deeply in love. 

I must confess that for a book this long I hoped we’d have more development of their relationship. We shift from the romance to the political machinations all the time and I felt both needed more depth. 

I loved them together and completely bought their romance (they fall in love in two days!) because of the stellar narration. of the audiobook. Narrated dual style by Alex Moorcock (Poseidon) and Will Watt (Icarus), they sold me completely on the chemistry! Alex is still new to me, but it’s no secret that I absolutely love Will Watt and he’s amazing in this one – a very nuanced performance. I expected nothing less!

We have two more books until this royal mess leads to either victory of The Thirteen or the fall of Olympus. We shall see!

Rep: queer romance. Also, in this series, everyone is queer. 

Content notes: mentions of parental abuse, attempted spousal murder. Torture (on page, but brief), violence, murder, elements of duchies consent (due to captor/captive dynamics), panic attack (on page)