House of the Underworld

by Cirice Gray

As gods combat monsters and demigods rise, mortals must still navigate the darkness of Elysium. A clone in the Court of Light faces unimaginable horror while a hopeful Sister Madalithea is summoned to serve at the House of the UnderworldIn the twinned estate of Artemis and Apollo, a nameless girl wakes fully formed into a world she doesn't understand. She is hunted through a pale jungle, made to watch her sisters fall one by one. When she survives, the reward is not freedom, but a cage.

Madalithea has dreamed of nothing greater than serving the god she adores. A summons to Lord Hades estate should be the fulfillment of everything faith has promised—but she soon finds herself attending a volatile, newly ascended Persephone, and behind her eyes a voice stirs.

A companion to The Persephone Effect, House of the Underworld turns its gaze from the powerful to the powerless—the mortal bodies beneath the gods' feet, the lives spent and discarded in the margins of divine ambition. This is the darkness from which Elysium's lords avert their gaze.



cover art by H.D. Thorn and Cirice Gray

670 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 29, 2026

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

With an epic scope reminiscent of Wrath Goddess Sing and the fever-dream religious experiences of The Starving Saints, Cirice Gray’s second novel House of the Underworld strikes a very particular, unique balance. Neither a novel of transfeminine misery nor a purely wish-fulfillment vehicle, it’s a work of breadth, depth, and incredible ambition.

Functioning as a companion novel to The Persephone Effect does mean that you have to read it first before you read House, since Madalithea has a crucial role in Persephone, the effects of which ripple through her own narrative: she harbors a secret that even she can’t remember, and the secret pulls her deeply into the schemes and grand strategies of the gods.

She is sixteen years old and she is kneeling to die.

Introduced as a humble priestess in Flower of the Underworld, Madalithea returns in this book with a heavy emotional freight—from both her exposure to the paparazzi who discovered her scandalous origins and her increasingly difficult relationships with her fellow priestesses Lydia and Cassiphone—and, rather than getting to process and heal, is instead summoned to serve in the house of her god, Hades. As an asthmatic, anxious and shy acolyte, Madalithea soon finds herself in contact with the pilot Persephone, who couldn’t have less time or regard for her… and that’s just the start of her troubles.

(Another book that might draw comparison here is Kushiel’s Dart, with various obvious parallels: like Phedre, Madalithea is initiated into a religious cult from childhood; she too experiences pain as pleasure, thanks to a “gift” of genetic modification from Apollo. While less willing or trained than Phedre, Madalithea likewise finds herself drawn into intrigues and plots of the powerful.)

The first parts of the book refamiliarize you with Madalithea’s internal landscape, but the very beginning shows you a sequence that tantalizes you with secrets as yet unrevealed. This is explained in a heartbreaking flashback where a younger Madalithea tries to commit suicide, only to be caught and recruited by Athena. There’s a heartbreaking moment where Madalithea, at her lowest point, tells Athena, “Please let me matter” even after she’s been told that agreeing to become Athena’s tool would shorten her lifespan significantly.

The words hook into the soft meat of her desperation. Matter. Essential. Changed everything. Every shameful secret desire she’s ever harbored, every pathetic fantasy of being special, of having worth and a reason to exist beyond simply existing—Athena is offering it to her wrapped in divine purpose. Four years. Four years of being someone important instead of the broken thing her mother tried to create. Four years of serving a cause greater than her own miserable survival. It would mean her entire stupid, painful life led somewhere. Meant everything. That every loss, every humiliation, every moment of wanting to disappear was preparation for this singular purpose.

She already knows she’s going to say yes. The certainty sits in her chest like ballast, steadying her even as tears streak her face. How could she possibly refuse? This is everything she ever wanted, delivered by a god who saw her falling and decided she was worth catching.

House of the Underworld is a story, most of all, about survival—how the neglected, the abused, the overlooked can rise and gain their own strengths, how they too can have happiness even amidst cruelty and how they will fight to have a better world than the one that made them.

Full review at Lesbian Books, With Teeth.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

HotU is the latest entry to the Gunmetal Olympus setting I've read and it's without a doubt immediately one of my favourites. It juggles a lot of major themes — the way hierarchies inevitably crush those at the bottom; the struggles of an authentic love triangle (though it later becomes more of a rhombus? shape?); why you should never become important at work; the stagnation of clinging to nostalgia — and Madalithea as a character becomes a perfect vector through which to explore all of these. In a setting of gods and monsters and reality-defying miracles she is by all means utterly ordinary, and the agonies that came with exposure to a higher world in the previous book get dialled up by an order of magnitude in this sequel. Cirice's prose is consistently beautiful, with more lines than I can count that stopped me dead in my tracks, and her handling of mature topics like intimacy, trauma, and abuse is done with incredible sincerity.

HotU is an incredible addition to the Sisters of Meténeion standalone series as well as a must-have partner novel to The Persephone Effect. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone for whom "lesbian nun scifi romance" sounds like a good time, with a major focus on romance alongside sprinklings of spy thriller and political manoeuvring. If I could give it more than 5 stars I would.

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of the Underworld and it's accompanying books have become my favorite thing I've read, as a companion book to Persephone Effect it plays that role extremely well, adding more threads in between the events of it and presenting really great new angles, but beyond that, it is on it's own something extremely special.
The characters are messy, flawed, painfully human caught up in a world so much bigger than them, Cirice doesn't shy away from showing these difficult relationships and exploring them to the fullest, it's filled with grief and hurt but also so much hope and love, it is really beautiful.
I started it right after it's release and did not stop for anything but food or sleep and much like its predecessor, Flower of the Underworld, I spent the final chapters of the book entirely in tears.
I love this book and the ones surrounding it dearly, they will live in my thoughts for a long time.

[M. Sosotris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is spectacular.

Now, I should start off by saying this is not only a sequel to the previous Flower of the Underworld, but it's a companion to the Gunmetal Olympus book The Persephone Effect, exploring the story of that book from a different character's POV, so do not just jump into this book first thing. You will be very lost.

With that said, I adored this one. It's a LONG book, but it's not a book I wanted to race through. It's an exquisite reading experience, and you really need to savour the rich characterization and lush language.

Mada's arc in this one is complex, emotionally satisfying, and utterly devastating. The relationships and interweaving arcs are just phenomenally realized.

I'm eagerly awaiting any future books by this author.

[James M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting extension to both Flower of the Underworld and The Persephone Effect, you'll be left wondering how Cirice Gray manages to crank that giant dial labeled "Suffering" so high without the knob snapping clean off.