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A review by theeditorreads
Gilded Ruins by Chantal Gadoury
5.0
Gilded Ruins is a sequel to Blinding Night, to be read after the first book.
Synopsis:
It is time for Summer and Darce to go to Mount Olympus, the House of the Gods. They’ve been summoned there by Zeus, the God of Gods, where Demeter is waiting desperately to claim her daughter back. Will Summer be able to become the Queen she always was, when she hasn’t even gained any powers and still remains a mere mortal?
Review:
I haven’t read a more compelling story from the Underworld. This is such a beautiful duology, and this conclusion to Blinding Night is everything I wanted! I cannot stress enough that you need to read the wonderful worlds that Chantal Gadoury creates. Each and every one of her books is a marvel!
Gilded Ruins continues from where Blinding Night left off. All the various gods from the Greek mythology coming together in Poseidon’s superyacht, especially the triad of Gods and their clashes, now that was as interesting as it was fun! I really enjoyed Arae as an Underworld fashion expert, as well as her and Thanatos’ equation. Can we have a book about them? And when Arae and Darce get to voice their own perspectives, even if from the past, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
The best thing was the author imagining the different Gods to be of different genders and ethnicities and in betwixt all that snark, they still managed to stay together. The most fun was the God of Love Eros, otherwise also known as Cupid.
It was kind of paradoxical that while every immortal rebuked Summer for the way humans envision Gods and yet while writing a book with Gods that’s exactly what an author has to do. Because God’s too needed their beauty sleep and that struck me as funny. And while I felt quite bad at times for Morpheus, the God of Dreams and the best friend of Hades, but I still heart Darce and Summer – Hades and Persephone, that is. There was also mention of Korean dramas and Mean Girls.
The ending is dreamy and the epilogue three weeks later rounds up the duology nicely.
P.S. Even though this is not that recent a book, I wonder how pomegranates (re Seven Seeds of Summer, the earlier name of Book One) came to be a fruit of such importance. (For reference, check out the covers of [b:Midnight Sun|53287484|Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5)|Stephenie Meyer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588597375l/53287484._SY75_.jpg|81783732] and [b:Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes|52472836|Everything is Under Control A Memoir with Recipes|Phyllis Grant|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1584522495l/52472836._SY75_.jpg|70730362].) Though in a perverse way, in the case of this book, it satisfied the Hindi idiom “ek anaar sau beemar”, meaning many lovers of a single thing/person.
The other books by the author that I have read and also recommend are:
Between the Sea and Stars
The Shrike and the Shadows
Blinding Night
Thank you to the author for an e-ARC of the book.
Synopsis:
It is time for Summer and Darce to go to Mount Olympus, the House of the Gods. They’ve been summoned there by Zeus, the God of Gods, where Demeter is waiting desperately to claim her daughter back. Will Summer be able to become the Queen she always was, when she hasn’t even gained any powers and still remains a mere mortal?
Review:
I haven’t read a more compelling story from the Underworld. This is such a beautiful duology, and this conclusion to Blinding Night is everything I wanted! I cannot stress enough that you need to read the wonderful worlds that Chantal Gadoury creates. Each and every one of her books is a marvel!
Gilded Ruins continues from where Blinding Night left off. All the various gods from the Greek mythology coming together in Poseidon’s superyacht, especially the triad of Gods and their clashes, now that was as interesting as it was fun! I really enjoyed Arae as an Underworld fashion expert, as well as her and Thanatos’ equation. Can we have a book about them? And when Arae and Darce get to voice their own perspectives, even if from the past, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
The best thing was the author imagining the different Gods to be of different genders and ethnicities and in betwixt all that snark, they still managed to stay together. The most fun was the God of Love Eros, otherwise also known as Cupid.
“We’re not born the same way as humans,” Eros had explained when I had asked about their connection, looking confused between the two of them. “It is our essence that is created. We’re not confined to genders, ages, nationalities. We just are.”
It was kind of paradoxical that while every immortal rebuked Summer for the way humans envision Gods and yet while writing a book with Gods that’s exactly what an author has to do. Because God’s too needed their beauty sleep and that struck me as funny. And while I felt quite bad at times for Morpheus, the God of Dreams and the best friend of Hades, but I still heart Darce and Summer – Hades and Persephone, that is. There was also mention of Korean dramas and Mean Girls.
The ending is dreamy and the epilogue three weeks later rounds up the duology nicely.
P.S. Even though this is not that recent a book, I wonder how pomegranates (re Seven Seeds of Summer, the earlier name of Book One) came to be a fruit of such importance. (For reference, check out the covers of [b:Midnight Sun|53287484|Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5)|Stephenie Meyer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588597375l/53287484._SY75_.jpg|81783732] and [b:Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes|52472836|Everything is Under Control A Memoir with Recipes|Phyllis Grant|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1584522495l/52472836._SY75_.jpg|70730362].) Though in a perverse way, in the case of this book, it satisfied the Hindi idiom “ek anaar sau beemar”, meaning many lovers of a single thing/person.
The other books by the author that I have read and also recommend are:
Between the Sea and Stars
The Shrike and the Shadows
Blinding Night
Thank you to the author for an e-ARC of the book.