Tropes/Key Points:
🏛️Greek Gods Retelling
🏛️Prophecies
🏛️Found Family
🏛️Slow Burn
🏛️Fated Mates
🏛️Love Triangles
TW: Murder, Mutilation, Death of Loved Ones (Car Accident)
The third installment of the Ichor series holds up to its predecessors. I will be honest that I didn’t even realize there was going to be a third book. The first two end in a way that allows for it to continue, but also in a way that if it never did, you wouldn’t be dissatisfied. I was surprised to learn a few weeks ago that Delphi was close to its release date, and I didn’t hesitate to download it on KU as soon as it came out.
This book wasn’t as action packed as the first two, which is understandable considering that its building up to a war that is similar to the first book. It picks up eighty-eight years after the ending of Horkos, and a new prophecy is revealed. We are given a lot of backstories to what our characters have been up to for the last eight decades, and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. We get to see how Saffron has changed with her immortality, getting glimpses of the bright-eyed girl as she slowly faded away with every death of a loved one.
Saffron is not the girl that you have come to know and love in this book, her life having been filled with heartbreak and settlement. She isn’t happy but doesn’t have a leg to stand on with changing her circumstances. She married Hermes and while it’s clear that they love each other, they aren’t meant to be together. It is revealed who Saffron’s HEA will be through not-so-subtle hints about who her third love is. I am eager for book four and seeing if they finally get together, because our FMC deserves some love for once! We get to watch as she handles horrors and mishaps, even while she is caught between a rock and a hard place in her life.
I think that the pacing overall through the story was handled very nicely and right around 70% of the book, things start to ramp up with all the pieces falling into place. While we know the bad guys in this story the entire time, the truth finally gets revealed to our characters about who the traitors are, with our heroes getting betrayed and Saffron making a hard decision. Prior to 70%, the plot is mostly setting everything up, even as we are introduced to a brand-new character, Hart, and I am obsessed with her. I cannot wait to see more of her in the next story, as well as a bit of the romance that has panned out for her.
Considering that it is eighty-eight years after the end of book two, the world has changed drastically. We are in a less dystopia setting and are in more of a modern world. Cars and phones are commonplace, as well as high rise buildings and cities. We are shown that even after a dystopia world, poverty still exists. The humans have formed their own “government” with police, detectives and firefighters to handle the day-to-day disasters. Of course, the Gods are still in control and we get small snippets of how they handle the larger issues that the humans cannot, keeping them firmly in the public eye for worship and prayers.
I will say that I wasn’t really in the mood to read this book and I feel like it affected how I received it. I am a mood reader, and I probably should have held off on reading this but I felt like if I did, I might not have ever made my way back to it. Please understand that this is not a comment or reflection on the series or author, it is a comment on myself and my state of mind. Despite this, I did try to look at it as objectively as possible, ignoring the fact that I wasn’t in the mood for it and focusing on the story, plot and characters to give my rating.
Overall, I truly did enjoy it and I’m excited for the series to continue. It was a great continuation and I loved seeing the author mature in her writing. She is going to go on to do amazing things!