Michael Defosse's Blog

Michael Defosse

There’s something about the Underworld that’s always called to storytellers. Maybe it’s the mystery—an unseen realm beneath the surface where judgment, memory, and fate intertwine. Or maybe it’s because the Greeks imagined death not as an end, but as a continuation—a reflection of life, shadowed and sharpened by eternity.

As I’ve spent the past few years exploring the world of Greek mythology, I’ve come to realize that the stories of the dead are often the most alive. They ask questions we still can’t quite answer: What happens to what we’ve done? Who decides what endures? And can love really cross the boundaries of mortality, as Orpheus believed it could?

Lately, I’ve found myself drawn to those questions again—while also revisiting the light of Olympus. If you haven’t yet met Zeus, Hera, Athena, and the others from Greek Mythology: Gods of Mount Olympus, now’s a wonderful time. I’m offering a Goodreads Giveaway for readers who want to step into those timeless myths and experience how they still speak to us today.

And later this month, the journey will continue—deeper, darker, and more profound than before. But for now, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What story from the Greek Underworld has always stayed with you—and why?

Greek Mythology: Gods of Mount Olympus: Myths, Powers, and Legends that Shaped Ancient Greece

by Michael J Defosse

There was a time when thunder wasn’t just weather—it was a god’s command. When the sea’s roar carried the temper of Poseidon, and the harvest rose or failed by Demeter’s unseen will. The ancient Greeks didn’t invent these stories merely to explain the world; they told them to understand themselves within it.

Yet here we are, centuries later, still returning to Olympus. Why?

Perhaps because the myths were never about distance—they were about reflection. When Zeus defies fate, we see ambition without limits. When Hera rages, we recognize the human hunger for loyalty and justice. Athena’s wisdom, Aphrodite’s desire, Ares’ fury—they are the elements of our own natures, dressed in immortal form.

In our modern age of logic and light, we’ve traded temples for screens and omens for algorithms. But the same questions still burn beneath the surface. What drives us? What defines power? Can love conquer chaos, or does it simply survive within it? Myth endures because it never pretended to answer—it invites us to ask again.

To me, the Olympian stories aren’t relics. They are living symbols—reminders that even in the age of reason, we crave meaning beyond measurement. The ancient Greeks gave those longings form. They shaped them into gods who fail, love, and learn as we do. That’s why their myths feel eternal. They are reflections, not relics.

When I began writing Greek Mythology: Gods of Mount Olympus, I wasn’t trying to modernize these tales. I wanted to let them breathe again—to capture the awe and tension that once filled the amphitheaters and temples of Greece. The myths don’t need updating. They need remembering.

Every age rediscovers them for its own reasons. For some, it’s nostalgia for the heroic. For others, it’s a search for beauty or order in a chaotic world. For me, it’s the realization that these stories—though ancient—speak with the same pulse that beats through us now.

Maybe we return to the myths not because they change, but because we do. Each reading is a mirror turned anew. The same thunder that once shook Olympus now echoes quietly within us, asking if we still believe in something larger than ourselves.

And if we listen closely enough, perhaps we’ll find that we always have.

Which Greek myth has always stayed with you—and why? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Greek Mythology: Gods of Mount Olympus: Myths, Powers, and Legends that Shaped Ancient Greece