Book One of the Lovers and Liars serial.Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and lust, is bored.She’s been bored for centuries, actually. After surviving the Immortal Wars that tore the old-world pantheons apart, she had hoped the twenty-first century would rejuvenate her. In a time where love and sex are openly on everyone’s mind, where better for a love goddess to thrive than the bustling city of … bustling city of Manhattan?
Unfortunately, no one worships the old gods anymore. She’s become a dreaded has-been. In a world of skeptics and technology-crazed mortals, loneliness and boredom have taken root.
Until she meets Loki.
Intrigued by the devilishly handsome Norse trickster, Aphrodite does what love goddesses do best: she drags him to bed for a night of passion. Satisfied for the first time since Ares jumped ship, she believes Loki might be the perfect man to kill her boredom and eviscerate her loneliness.
Despite their sizzling chemistry, Loki seems more interested in hunting a creature who is literally tearing up the New York club scene than swapping stories about the old days.
After all, the splendor of the ancient world is long gone. The gods who survived the Immortal Wars are scattered across the globe, out of touch and just trying to survive. As their popularity dwindles, as their worshipers forget, their power fades. Yet Loki has a cure for that, a plan to recapture his former glory–Aphrodite’s too, if she so desires it.
All she has to do is put up with his exasperating ways.
But for mind-blowing sex, a bit of adventure, and a godly companion in this forever changing world, Aphrodite can put up with a little trickster madness.
In theory, anyway…
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Aphrodite is a love columnist and wealthy Manhattan socialite. (Like Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, but with Mr. Big’s bank account.) She hasn’t seen many of the Old Gods in a long time. Then Loki shows up. The amount of humans who remember and worship the Gods has a direct impact on how powerful they are, and if they still exist at all, in this story.
It was good.
It’s interesting within the paranormal romance/ erotica genre because it brings the heat early on (15% in has the first steamy kiss that leads to more), and it keeps up the heat. Aphrodite and Loki are into rough play, but they are immortals and it is consensual.
I would recommend it to those who enjoy reading erotica where the characters are from different pantheons. I don’t read a lot of erotica, but I thought this was well written. I do greatly enjoy paranormal romance as well as urban fantasy. (With slightly different names and backgrounds, this could easily be an Existence novella of my own. And because it reminds me of how my characters feel about and approach certain things, I enjoyed it far more than I might have otherwise.)
Some of my favorite lines include:
“persons working in service positions were the people to flatter if one wished to get anything extra in this world.” The line is thought by Aphrodite, and it explains why she’s so very generous to drivers, bartenders, maids, etc.
“bodacious body” I haven’t heard someone use that adjective, outside of surfer speak, in a long time. It was odd that the action paused for a lengthy description, but perhaps that’s why I noticed the word. If not for passages that paused for description, I would have given this five stars.
“It’s been pleasant to have someone by my side and in my bed who truly understands what I am.” Another Aphrodite quote, which sounds exactly like something my Existence characters would say. Really, if emoji hearts could appear in my eyes, I would have had them at this line.
I also enjoyed the author’s afternote, which suggests I can go have a baked good for being awesome and fantastic. And the quick and dirty guide to the gods mentioned was an extremely thoughtful addition. I appreciate that.
I read the whole book because I was curious about what Aphrodite would do next. It didn’t end as I suspected it would. It did leave me wanting to read more from this author. This is the first book in a series, which seems to be a spin-off of another (non-erotic) series.
It’s a happily-ever-after for the most part, erotic, romantic, controversial if you have feelings about certain pantheons, there was some action, a few plot twists, and it was fun and entertaining to read.
I hadn’t heard of the Maenad before, so I learned about them.
There are several covers. I do like the one with the man (Loki) about to kiss the neck of the woman (Aphrodite), though I don’t know how much it matches the characters.
The theme seems to be independence, knowing how to make your own way. I think Aphrodite was the author’s favorite character, as the erotic scenes focus much more on her and her body.
Obstacles are difficult to write when your main characters are deities. Aphrodite’s main one seems to be that she’s lonely. Loki’s main one seems to be that he was being forgotten, and thus fading. Those are the internal conflicts. The external one is the Maenad.