Review: Hades by Alexandra Adornetto

Book Description from the ARC:

ARC, 422 pages

August 2011, Feiwel & Friends

Heaven help her.

Even the love of her boyfriend, Xavier Woods, and her siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, can’t keep the angel Bethany Church from being tricked into a motorcycle ride that ends up in Hell. There, Jake Thorn bargains for Beth’s release back to Earth. But what he asks of her will destroy her, and quite possibly, her loved ones, as well. Can he be trusted in this wager?

Alexandra Adornetto’s Hades has it all – good and evil, angels and demons, romance and heartbreak.

Source: Ksenia from Feiwel & Friends (Thank you!)

My Thoughts:

Beth’s life as an angel on earth continued in Hades, the sequel of Halo. After a year, she was more accustomed to lifestyle on earth. She was more ‘humanized.’ I think what made her more human was her boyfriend, Xander. Having a relationship with a human who accepts her for what she was, made her transition easier. Their love connected them in ways that were both humanly and angelically impossible.

But one night, during Halloween, Jake tricked Beth to ride with him to Hades. Beth in Hades was an imbalance, a ticking bomb waiting for the moment to explode. Surrounded by demons, violence and wickedness, she struggled to survive. But not all creatures in Hades were evil. She found a friend in Tucker, Jake’s assistant and Hanna, the eternal underworld servant. Both of them have their own sad stories to tell, both of which included Jake.

Jake Thorn showed a soft, slightly tame side in Halo. The same thing happened in this novel. In Hades, he let his cold, ruthless side fade a little. I got to see how Jake, despite his being evil, was capable of doing small deeds of goodness. He protected and took care of Beth, although his concept of doing these was distorted.

The nine circles from Dante’s Inferno were there along with Lucifer and the eight first fallen angels. Adornetto’s version of Hell was a collision of modern technology, earthly desires and evil as old as time.

Hades is better than Halo with a more interesting plot, striving and suffering characters and a whole lot of romance. Although at some point, I found the pace slow, it’s fairly easy to breeze through. I was engaged.

Rating: