*I received this book from Hachette Book Group Canada in exchange for an honest review.*
Title: The Immortals
Author: Jordanna Max Brodsky
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: February 16, 2016
ISBN: 9780316347181
The city sleeps. Selene DiSilva walks her dog along the banks of the Hudson. She is alone-just the way she likes it. She doesn’t believe in friends, and she doesn’t speak to her family. Most of them are simply too dangerous.
Murders.
In the predawn calm, Selene finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. And so does the memory of a promise she made long ago. To protect the innocent-and to punish those who stand in her way.
Gods.
With the NYPD out of its depth, Selene vows to hunt the killer on her own. But when classics professor Theo Schultz decodes the ancient myth behind the crime, the solitary Huntress finds herself working with a man who’s her opposite in every way. Together, they face a long-forgotten cult that lies behind a string of murders, and they’ll need help from the one source Selene distrusts most of all: the city’s other Immortals.
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As a student of Classics throughout my university career, this story appealed to my interest in Greek mythology and made for a read quite unlike anything I’ve read before. Part murder-mystery and part fantasy, The Immortals entwines a CSI-like serial killer with the aged gods of Greek mythology. Anything that involves ancient Greek rituals or history has my attention. This book is full of wrathful gods, kooky ancient history professors, and distorted cults.
I really like the character of Selene. She is virtually fearless, brash, headstrong, and totally kicks butt. The story centres around her search for the killer who has invoked an ancient and nearly lost Greek ritual to honour Persephone. The killer has perverted what was once a beautiful and innocent ceremony, turning it into one of vengeance and death. Selene’s job is to protect the innocent, but she has come a long way from the goddess she used to be. This is her story of struggle and of overcoming the violent and unforgiving celestial that she used to be. She is on a path of transformation and of peace.
Although the book is large, it’s a quick and encapsulating story. Brodsky takes mythology and makes is accessible to the average reader. Myths and legends are explained in a way that makes them more interesting to a current reader by modernizing them. The way Brodsky brings the gods and goddesses into the 21st-Century is often humorous as the deities take on more contemporary versions of their ancient selves. This informative and sometimes comedic take helps to balance and round out the story of bloodlust and murder that runs alongside it.
Definitely a new and exciting read. For the reader who is interested in modern adaptations of history, Greek mythology, or classical history, this is a book for you!
Worn Pages and Ink 