Neon Gods by Katee Roberts: A must-read retelling of a classic myth!

I found Neon Gods at Barnes and Noble while on vacation in August of 2024, and while the cover intrigued me, the title really caught my eye. Neon Gods. Immediately, my brain went to something along the lines of Tokyo, New York, or literally anywhere else that has bright lights and big city vibes. Maybe that’s because I grew up as a teen in the era where neon lighting along your car was the new big thing to do (Thanks, Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift). But either way… it was not what I expected.

Spoilers ahead, mateys.

So, from the beginning of the book, you come to realize that these Gods are not the original Gods of the Pantheon. (Oh yeah. I should start there. The Neon Gods, they’re the Greek deities, only they’re… not?) No, these are their descendants, and each takes the title of the previous through marriage and wheeling or dealing. Demeter moved up into her position through power, and her children, including Persephone, came along for the ride, mostly unwilling passengers to their mother’s games. checking off the ‘parental trauma I can personally relate to’ box Well, these games led to Persephone being pushed at Zeus and her fleeing for her life from him… and right into Hades’s arms.

Now, one thing to note, without giving away too much here… the Neon Gods rule Olympus as a big city… but all of Hades’s side is protected from the extravagance and fake pomp of the upper class side. Crossing the border without consent from either side is tantamount to an act of war. That’s condensing it down.

Hades puts Persephone under his protection from both her mother and Zeus, and Persephone learns all about Hades’s lifestyle, pretending to be his. This ploy leads into her exploring her sexuality and kinks in a healthy way checks off another box there, the ‘no 50 shades of bullcrap’ box and she grows to truly love him. She loves him enough, and his people, to try and go back at the end of the story to make a deal to keep him and his people out of an all out war, which Zeus is threatening in order to get her back.

…*glances at the boxes* Not really a dirtbag ex, but close enough. checks box

Hades, who also loves Persephone Ah, the ‘bad boy knight in shining armor’ box, I adore that one in particular… checks that off goes off to kill Zeus and get revenge for his own family’s deaths and keep her out of Zeus’s clutches.

He succeeds. You don’t think he’ll make it… but he does. And it’s glorious. And you just want to see this bad guy FALL but you get this satisfaction that it looks like he did it to himself. Perfection in the pages. applause

And it’s happily ever after. I love when the bad boy and the good girl gone bad get their happily ever after. happy sigh

I’m probably missing a lot in this, but I also read it over a week ago and have been dealing with a lot of the process that comes with getting your book published. Suffice to say, I have now made my happy and thorough review. And I won’t lie, I’d read more about these two. Eagerly. You could feed it to me with a spoon and I would eat it up. So there’s that.

Oh, and the spice? It was spicy. It was spicy enough that I broke my composure a few times while reading it, and I am from a generation that got unfettered internet access as a kid because it was so new, and that access included fanfic labeled as citrus fruits that would make a grown man blush.

So yeah… now I need more from this pairing because I want to see if they have kids and whatnot, ok? I need it desperately. But yeah. It was amazing and you should read it.