Will Demon's latest quest bring down the wrath of Zeus?
Demon's life on Mount Olympus has never been busier. Thanks to the awful heroes down on Earth, he has a whole slew of injured beasts to care for. And worse still, the goddess Psyche wants Demon to "borrow" Zeus's prized eagle for an urgent mission. But is her task worth the risk of offending the king of the gods?
In 2015 I have 6 upcoming titles, 4 books in the brand-new Beasts of Olympus series from Piccadilly Press (Grosset and Dunlap/Penguin Young Readers in the USA), an early reader called The Little Green Drum from Orion and my first proper YA novel, Cleo, from Orchard. Cleo is a mixture of historical and paranormal, and follows the teenage Cleopatra on her journey to become pharaoh. I'm very excited about it indeed!
I was born in a small village in Hampshire, England. I loved reading from an early age, and was never found without some kind of book in my hand from the time I could turn and page and make sense of what was written there. My first job was as an editor of children's books, but I soon jumped the fence and started writing my own. My first picture book was published in 1992, and now I write for all ages (two to teen). Atticus the Storyteller's 100 Greek Myths was shortlisted for the BBC Blue Peter Book Award in 2004. It is the most comprehensive collection of Greek myths ever written for children. My first novel, Hootcat Hill which was described as “A lyrical fantasy full of old, dark magic entertainingly bound up with ordinary life.” by the Sunday Times.
The book I would take to a desert island is The Lord of the Rings. I've lost count of how many times I've read it, and I am still finding new things to marvel at in it.
Sometimes we are faced with situations where there are only negative options and you have to choose the better of the two options even if neither is ideal. For example, Demon is faced with helping one god, Psyche, to complete a mission. However, he may anger another god, Zeus, by doing so. Demon had to be cautious when making his decision of who to help and how.
Zeus’s Eagle takes place right after Centaur School. Demon is heading back to Olympus with the rewards of saving the Phoenix. But of course, nothing ever comes easy for Demon.
There’s another beast injured. Chiron needs help with a human baby. With man-eating horses threatening Demon’s mom’s village, Demon sees his mom but she held a secret from Demon and that angers him. Then there’s a three headed snake, an old goat, a golden dog and Zeus’s eagle.
After all the chaos Demon experienced, Zeus gives Demon a special gift.
Such a wonderful read and a joy to ride along with Demon’s crazy adventure!
It's nice that the author does drop some tidbits in that are from the actual mythology (highly edited of course)...that way I can look up and read it myself. More selfish gods threatening Demon, escaping peril, etc. It never feels like Demon is in actual danger, so that lowers the tension considerably. Even when the maenads are chasing him, he's rescued easily and it just skips past Chiron healing Dionysus. Oh, and the animals are only fed ambrosia, even though they hate it. It keeps saying that there are no other options except on feast days, but...then why is Hestia always cooking non-ambrosia...?
There is also nonsense about Demon riding Keith (flying horse) and basically they collapse into the water. Demon attempts to swim and hold the "small beast's" head above water. Look, if he can ride Keith, that means Keith isn't that small, and there's no way he can hold it's head above the water...
Apparently Demon didn't write about the phoenix as his first case, since Pegasus and Chimera are going to be the first ones written about.
The illustrations are STILL getting in the way of the text. Whoever made the e-book really screwed up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Synopsis:"Will Demon's latest quest bring down the wrath of Zeus?
Demon's life on Mount Olympus has never been busier. Thanks to the awful heroes down on Earth, he has a whole slew of injured beasts to care for. And worse still, the goddess Psyche wants Demon to "borrow" Zeus's prized eagle for an urgent mission. But is her task worth the risk of offending the king of the gods?"
My Review: This is the final book in this series (at least so far) and for me it wasn't quite as good as the rest of the series. I honestly don't really get the point of the title since the eagle played such a minor roll in the book. I did however enjoy Demon's character development, he is starting to mature slowly, though it seems that at least a full year has passed since he became the care taker of the beasts. I also really enjoyed the variety of beastly characters in this even though some of my favorites from the previous books took a major back seat in this one. I am kind of hoping that this is the definitely last book in the series as I would expect the target audience to be starting to loose interest in the subject.