The bleeding heart is a pink and white flower that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional heart shape. It is also referred to as the heart flower or as lady-in-bath. The flower is known to be poisonous to the touch and deadly to consume. And, like the mythological goddess Persephone, it only blossoms in spring.

With this book, I did something that I try to never do when waiting for a new release. I set high expectations. And I honestly can’t say I regret it because this book lived up to every standard I had set in my head.

Going into this book we already knew it was a modern Hades and Persephone retelling, and I expected that whole aspect to be good, but I didn’t realize just how amazing it would be. It fit Persy and Cillian so well, and the metaphor played into the book way more than I expected with the pomegranate and the bleeding hearts, which I loved.

Onto the characters, Persephone was an even better protagonist than I had dared to hope. It made me angry that people had characterized her as boring and uninteresting right from the start, before even having read her book, solely because she was the “good” sister, and so I’m incredibly glad that she turned out to be such an amazing character because she’s really going to prove all of them wrong. She was braver, more motivated and more passionate than I had expected, and above all, she was smart and ambitious. I hate communication conflicts in books, when characters just listen to the first thing anyone says and roll with that, and then get angry at the love interest for the most bizarre reason that they just heard, so I can’t even explain how satisfying it was for Persy to form her own conclusions and get work done herself.

“You’re not the naïve little damsel everyone thinks you are.” Belle killed the engine, and I realized we were parked outside her building. “You have nails and teeth, and a spine to go with them. Persephone wasn’t only a floral maiden. She was also the queen of death.

Now for Cillian. Going into this book, I was really hoping that even though the only impressions that we got of him in The Hunter were that he was unfeeling and distant, that he wouldn’t be unlikeable because of that. Quite often I dislike male protagonists because their rudeness issues just go a bit too far for me, but I can honestly say that Cillian's level of “darkness” was perfect. He wasn’t as rude or obnoxious as some other love-interests I’ve read about, but he was still mysterious enough to hold my interest. Long story short, he was a great character, and there were a lot of sides to his personality that I did not anticipate in any way ;)

“But what are villains, my dear wife, if not misunderstood heroes?”

And I think this goes without saying but they were an amazing couple. Definitely not conventional, but as they say, normal is overrated.

“We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn’t drag you down a dark path. You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus.”

Can I just say that I LOVED the plot? Making interesting plot points and events sometimes seems to be further down on the radar of authors who write romance because they choose to focus on the couple, and while I’m all for that, if you can merge a good storyline AND a good romance, for me the book will almost always be better than a book with just one of those aspects. This book focused a lot on business and money, so it might not be for everyone, but I thought it was really fun.

I know I’m starting to drone on, but I can’t not give honourable mentions to the side characters! CillianPersy might have stolen the show, but the other characters did a great job of trying to get it back. We saw a lot of all the people who have/will have a book in this series, which I always love. Seeing Hunter and Sailor again was fantastic, and we got SO MUCH SAM, BELLE, and ASH content! Particularly Sam because he was involved with Cillian’s business and Belle because she was Persy’s sister. AND WE MET DEVON, who is presumably the love interest of book four! (He wasn’t in the last book, right?)

“You’re riding, too?” Aisling asked, turning tomato-red as soon as she noticed Sam. True to his Sam-ness, he ignored her existence as he breezed past her.

^THE SAMAISLING CRUMBS AHHH

*4.75

My The Villain Playlist:
Villain by Noah Reid
tolerate it by Taylor Swift
Weaker Girl by BANKS

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