The Greek Gods are alive and well and living in Manhattan

Book Review:  The Immortals by Jordanna Max Brodsky

When people stopped believing in the gods, the gods began to diminish.  They still walk among mortals though.  Artemis now goes by the name Selene DiSilva and she calls Manhattan home.  Her powers may be greatly diminished but she can still handle mortals.  Or can she?  As the story begins and she intervenes to save yet another woman from an abusive man, she finds herself wondering if this is the fight she won’t win.  She does win, but just barely.  Has she finally grown so weak that a mere man can defeat her?  As troubling as that thought is, Selene soon discovers there’s something that frightens her even more.  Someone is trying to resurrect the Eleusinian Mysteries and they are upping the ante by using human sacrifice.  Selene suspects that it’s one of her fellow gods, trying to regain former powers.

This is the first entry in the Olympus Bound series and it’s intriguing.  I liked Brodsky’s interpretation of not only the histories of the Greek gods, but also what they would be like if they were among us today.  And I appreciated Selene’s observations about her fellow gods, particularly Persephone.

The mystery was okay — the gods don’t really hide themselves all that well but why should they bother?  No one believes in them anyway.  I had most of the bad guys figured out but not the main one.  That one caught me by surprise but in a good way.  The tension level was excellent.

The romance, and yes, there is one, sort of — that didn’t really work for me.  Let me amend that.  I felt the romance of Artemis and Orion.  Brodsky sold that very well.  Selene and this guy, not so much.  Aside of the glimpses of her past with Orion, Selene is a pretty icy character.  During her heyday, she may have allowed herself to care about her handmaidens, but these days she keeps everyone at an emotional distance.  She protects women but she doesn’t care about any one of them individually.  I would expect that countless years of only exposing herself to the worst of men would have hardened her against them particularly.  Yet somehow,  while trying to figure out the next move of a fellow immortal intent on sacrificing human lives for godly power, she finds herself drawn to a man she originally suspected of murder?  Over the course of a few books, maybe.  All in the same book though?  Which took place in something like 10 days?  It felt rushed.  Not a deal-breaker though.  

Originally posted on my wordpress blog on January 12, 2017.  Reposting it here as I'm preparing to review its sequels, Winter of the Gods and Olympus Bound.