I hate doing this, but I DNF'ed this one just under 50%. Even still, I gave this 2 stars because the premise is actually interesting, and I really enjoyed some of the scenes in the other world that were richly written. I just couldn't continue to devote precious reading time to a story that is otherwise poorly executed, and whose main character is so unlikeable, even borderline pathetic.

At times I felt like I was reading a series already in progress, as there seemed to be a whole backstory to Psyche that we didn't have and desperately needed to understand her motivations. It's obvious that, despite being a therapist, she had plenty of unresolved trauma of her own but we don't know why or what or how. Maybe it comes later but we needed it sooner to connect with her.

Although the writing itself got slightly better the more I read, much of the beginning parts were awkward and stilted. It seems like a completely different author than the one who writes the almost trance-like party scenes. There's also way too much telling vs showing, and even still plenty of it is too confusing to follow. I also couldn't for the life of me understand either Psyche's or Eros's motivations and their immediate attraction to each other felt flimsy, and without a shred of chemistry.

I appreciate the opportunity to read this book, but it just wasn't for me. I am going to decline leaving any public reviews because others may enjoy it more than I do, and I don't have any desire to intentionally harm an author who I assume poured her heart and soul into something I just didn't happen to like.

I read an eARC on NetGalley on 6/24/2024 in exchange for nothing, because I have no clout, but it was free for a couple days and I love that for me. 2/5 stars. Some spoilers.

The short version (no spoilers):
I like the concept better than the execution. The worldbuilding is confusing and not well explained though it has some interesting concepts I would've liked to explore. There is no clear overarching plot which is an issue because it means the last 25% of the book feels entirely disconnected from the first 75%. The set up is confusing and flimsy. Psyche, the main character, feels empty for large portions of the book, and I was a lot more interested in the love interest, Eros. I like the moodiness of the story, I like the ideas behind some of the worldbuilding, I like that it's sapphic, and I really like Eros. My main hope would be that another editor sees this before it goes to print.

The long version (spoilers):
I'm not usually a Greek retelling kind of girl so I wasn't sure what to expect but I saw that it was sapphic and decided to give it a go.

The characters are hit or miss. I like Eros more than I like Psyche which is strange because the story is told from Psyche's POV. Psyche does not make much sense to me as a character. We learn throughout the story that she is one of three sisters and the family screw-up. When she was younger her mother got sick and then her father disengaged and she allegedly became used to trying to hold her family together. She apparently used to actually party when she was younger but gave that up because...I'm honestly not sure? Not because of her mom's death, because that was before. At the beginning of the story Psyche is a therapist and part-time influencer who cannot hold down a job for more than a year, she attained her current therapy job through her sister's connections and spends her days pretty lonely outside of when she plays video games with online friends. She gets fired in chapter one for violating patient confidentiality – which, as a side note, is incredibly dumb – but that never feels like something momentous? The thing is nothing really seems to matter when she's involved. She gets fired but then she starts streaming while she plays video games and suddenly paying her rent or bills is no longer an issue. In fact she becomes successful streaming her gameplay almost instantaneously, which means any anxiety we may have had about her situation is immediately discarded. We get told she has weird relationships with her sisters but then those don't seem to be addressed or resolved or really play any role in the story, they're just there? It's strangely vapid. Psyche just feels empty for large portions of the story. She has anxiety at the beginning but that gets resolved and now she can talk back to and negotiate with gods because....I am honestly unsure.

Eros, like I mentioned before, is a more compelling character to me. I think the thing about her is that she seems to actually have a purpose in life, as lonely as it is. She seems to be incredibly lonely and self critical because, as she points out, love and passion can bring joy but they can bring about destruction too when someone makes a foolish decision in the name of passion. Her job actually causes some people pain, which can certainly take a toll. I honestly just want to learn more about her job and her dynamics with her family and the politics of the court of the gods. Also there's this interesting moment where Eros "tests" Psyche by trying to seduce her rather than continue their friendship. Psyche that she can never be sure of people's love for her because she is a goddess of love and passion, ergo everyone feels love for her but it is not real love because they don't choose to do so they are simply compelled to do so because of WHAT she is, not WHO she is. I think that's interesting, and again I think Eros is interesting, but I just. I don't understand why she likes Psyche, especially at the beginning. We are told later it was love-at-first-sight. My thing is though that I can accept gods and magic, but I just draw the line at insta-love, especially when it's as flimsy as the one in this story.

Let's get into the setup. Eros and Psyche meet because Zephyr, another god, invites Psyche to a party because he says he wants Psyche to help his friend Eros. It is VERY unclear why Zephyr does that though. Zephyr says he wants Psyche to help Eros, but it is unclear what kind of help she could provide, or why Psyche even agrees to go. Zephyr doesn't even frame it as "oh I want my friend to start therapy" it's just a "hey come to this sexy party to help my friend" and Psyche just agrees? Also allegedly it wasn't a coincidence, and it was one of Psyche's online friends who got her invited to the gods' party, but that's also just a strange choice because...why would you want your friend to attend a party and enter a world where she could very easily die?? And why would Zephyr agree?? It's just very flimsy. Honestly if the author had written Psyche to be devastated at losing her job which leads her to say "fuck it" and attend a club where she meets Zephyr, who invites her to an afterparty where she meets Eros, that would make more sense to me. Zephyr would lead her away because maybe the gods bring humans in for entertainment, which fits into the toying-with-humanity-thing the Greek gods seem to love. Being devastated at losing her job could also explain why Psyche would agree to strange deals with magical strangers, but that's not what the author tells us is going on. Instead, the prose tells us that Psyche's actions are guided by the fact that she wants to help people.....but we don't ever really see her help people, especially in the beginning. She doesn't even seem to enjoy her job as a therapist that much. Anyways in this setup Psyche loses Zephyr in this party which means she is no longer under his protection/the gods want to eat her, and Eros has to save her, and they make a magical pact so that they can keep seeing each other. Again, I do not understand why Eros wants to seek her out. After meeting Eros, I get why Psyche attracted to Eros and I get why she wants to learn more about the new world she's discovering, but this setup is just very strange.

Let's get into the worldbuilding, specifically the world of the gods. From the little I remember from the Ancient Greece segment of my 7th grade social studies class I recall being told that the Greek gods were sometimes heavily involved with humanity though it was something to avoid because of the chaos they would bring. I like this idea, I think it leads to interesting tension because there are some rules that the gods are restrained by – there is an overarching Law that applies to them all such as being unable to lie or appear in the human realm unless summoned, and then there is more conditions about when you swear an oath and how breaking that oath can result in actual death, but there do exist loopholes – which leads to a very dangerous game of politics that even a human can play. There's something interesting about having a character that's doing the plot equivalent of being embraced by a lion. It's like you can just imagine the softness and warmth and weight of that embrace but you must also remember that the lion could eat or crush you at any moment. Psyche knows relatively early on and learns even more throughout the story that being with Eros is physically dangerous for her, because she is mortal and the gods could easily kill her because of law or politics or whimsy that she cannot understand. But the problem is it's not just that Psyche doesn't understand everything, it's that the reader also does not understand ANYTHING for a very significant portion of the book. It's very confusing and it means that we don't understand the meaning behind most of what's happening for the first I want to say 35-40%. Gods have Domains and they can rule over them but there are rules about them that are also just not that explained, and also apparently most of humanity doesn't know about the gods being real but also there are enough who do for Psyche to be able to identify and purchase a book about how to summon one of the gods online and have it actually be legit?

I also want to throw out that it's incredibly jarring for the reader to have characters that allegedly are just finding out that Greek gods and magic are real (the world doesn't know they exist, apparently?) but then they seem to just. Readily accept it, with no real transition or question or shock. There is no weight to having characters find out that Greek gods are real, which makes the fantastical element of it all fall flat. But also, if the gods are real I have to also wonder why exactly humanity seems to have abandoned them? There's what I think is a throwaway line about Aphrodite brining hell when there isn't enough of humanity worshipping her – but if the majority of this story is set in modern day NYC, there is no evidence that there is ANY humanity worshipping her, which would cause a problem, right? It's not clear how the Greek gods translate to a modern setting.

I think I've hinted this throughout, but also the plot is just kinda weird. The setup I already discussed was bad. I think I like some of the negotiations around Eros and Psyche's relationship, though I just don't understand why exactly they kept seeing each other. The first 75% of the book is them growing closer/falling in love which was nice enough (because I just like Eros) and the last 25% is Psyche having to go on a side quest so that Aphrodite doesn't kill her and she can get back together with Eros, who's being held hostage behind a magical golden cage. Weird tonal shift, but it feels more similar to what I vaguely remember Greek legends being like (quests and trials into the world of the gods) so I think that's where the meat of the retelling would be. I don't know enough of the original Psyche and Eros story to say anything about it, though I did like that Psyche in that last part was the most interesting she had been in the entire book.

Anyways I'm losing steam. My final thoughts are that I think I see the vision, but I honestly had more fun piecing the story apart than actually reading it.

Not for me, unfortunately.

Love a Greek mythology retelling. Love intriguing (fae?) courts, love an atmospheric read.
But. The feeling of being dropped in the middle of the story without any background plus a lack of motivation from both Psyche and Eros on the why’s of their relationship made me not be invested.

The confusion while reading this book was what stopped my enjoyment. I felt as if I had missed a few chapters or even the first book in this series. Barely anything on Psyche, why did she so readily accept all the out-of-this-world things that were happening, why mention the sisters quite often but not provide any information? Yes it was mysterious and I guess it kind of worked for the story a bit, but I just could not get into things.

I almost wish the story would have been about Psyche doing a frantic deep dive in Elizabethan books in mentions of the Courts in plain sight and desperately trying to get back to the other Realm and Eros. But nope, just buy some honey and try to light your tongue on fire- that’ll bring her back!

The lack of connection made me skip through parts of the book. Perhaps more shall be explained or at least become clear in future books, which would be great as I did enjoy the world building.

I received an ARC of this book (thanks!) and these are my own opinions. Thank you to Forever for inviting me to read this book!

𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 4.25⭐️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: fantasy/ romance 📚

𝙼𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜:
A sweet and fun sapphic Greek mythology retelling

𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
Modern Greek mythology retellings
Psyche and Eros
Family drama
Sapphic romance
Insta love
Video game streaming

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚍:
A cat name Latte

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛:
The world building was a little confusing, I wish there had been more details

A cool world here, and I love to see messy sapphics!

I’m torn on this book because while I liked the premise a lot, and the author is deft at their craft (I enjoyed their earlier book The Tiger’s Daughter a lot!), this one could have really used a better edit. And by that I don’t mean proofread, I mean it needed some set of fresh eyes to catch the inconsistencies in character development.

All the way up to 50%, I still didn’t have a good idea of what made Psyche who she was and there were a lot of missed opportunities to tell the reader what was in her head. For example, when she throws Eros out in chapter 12 or 13, I don’t know whether it’s because Eros has just discounted Psyche’s statement, or because Psyche is mad that Eros has put her through a sort of test, or something else.

Another missed opportunity is Psyche’s sisters: they are mentioned a lot and are on page some, but when Psyche tells Eros about her sisters and their relationship, none of that is on page so we the reader don’t know.

Caracter-building and my understanding of their motivations is one of the most important things to me when reading, so the weaknesses of this book hit right where it matters (to me). If you have other priorities when reading, the book is worth checking out, and the author is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

I got an advance review copy from the publisher and netgalley, opinions are my own.

Oath of Fire is for anyone who likes Greek mythology retellings. This is a sapphic retelling of Psyche and Eros with a fantasy feel to it. At the beginning of the book the main character Psyche has lost another job as a therapist and soon finds herself in another court swearing herself to Eros. I thought this was very fast-paced and had instant lust where both Psyche and Eros instantly want to be with each other. The characters were the most compelling and interesting aspect and I liked the back story and getting to know more about each one. The character development was good and made sense for the characters. The video game aspect was really cool and I liked the mask aspect and how Psyche saw Eros without it. The worldbuilding aspect on the other hand was very confusing, I had no idea what was going on and the stakes so I just focused on the relationship and had a good fast paced read.

This book is for my sapphic mythology lovers. The story of Eros and Psyche told how it hasn’t been told before. As a therapist I was interested in the psychology of it all and as someone who enjoys Greek mythology I was entranced by the story.
How far would you go to be with the love of your life?

Oath of Fire definitely hit a lot of the right spots for me. Sapphics, an interesting twists on Greek Gods, the MC plays mmorpgs, family drama, and the vibes were right. I loved the sapphic twist on the Eros and Psyche love story.
Tho I’m definitely not usually one for falling in love fast plots the way it happens in Oath of Fire seems to make sense when it happens, along with Eros also being a god I feel like it wouldn’t be hard falling fast for a God. I did feel a bit confused throughout the book especially the beginning, I thought that I was missing parts of the lore/story, why some people know about gods and a few other parts didn’t seem needed or fully fleshed out.
Overall I would definitely recommend this to someone who enjoys Greek retellings, queer fantasy or spicy sapphic vibes. I’m excited to see Bondi’s story in the future…

Thank you Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I took a chance on this because I was sent a widget and it sounded fun, but this is a very quick DNF for me.

I could immediately tell the writing was not going to work for me, so I debated immediately DNFing, but figured I'd give this a little more of a shot. Then our main character gets fired from her job because she's a therapist who's outed a trans client to her parents. And she genuinely seems to think she's simply being misunderstood. How am I meant to sympathize with this character after that, as a non-binary reader?

I love sapphic romance and I love Greek mythology so I was super excited to read this! I enjoyed the descriptive writing, especially around the Courts and gods, the pacing of the plot, and the ending totally hooked me. My main issue is that none of the relationships had depth - Psyche and her sisters and friends, her relationship with Eros. In particular, throughout the book I kept doubting her relationship with Eros. Their initial obsession felt forced and I wasn’t convinced that they were so deeply in love. I ultimately didn’t understand who Eros was as a character so it was difficult to buy in to her devotion to Psyche. I also thought the spicy scenes were a little meh. All in all a fun read, though! I enjoyed it.

Psyche is a therapist and influencer feeling a little lost after losing her job, ruining her reputation, and having issues with her family. When she receives a personal invitation to a mysterious party from an alluring stranger, she figures she has nothing to lose. The party is more than just a little mysterious, as Psyche finds herself thrown into the world of Courts, suddenly surrounded by entirely new worlds, oaths, gods, and plenty of new rules. Among the gods is Eros, the embodiment of passion, desire, and love itself. Eros is instantly drawn to Psyche and her interest is only further piqued by Psyche’s boldness and selflessness, even when it comes to gods, and she immediately swears an oath to protect her. Psyche becomes further entwined with Eros and consequently, the rest of the gods as well.

I should probably preface this by saying I don’t tend to read fantasy. However, I’m willing to give any genre a shot, as long as it’s queer, so I was still interested in this. I thought some aspects ended up falling flat though and probably made it more of a 2.5 star read for me.

One thing I loved was Eros’ devotion to Psyche, but it would’ve been more impactful if their relationship had felt more developed. I get that she’s a god so things are going to play out a little differently and develop more quickly, but as a reader, to feel more invested, I need them to have more of a reason for being so devoted to each other. The oath sort of gets rid of that need but again, from the outside, I need more. Having a deeper development for them would’ve made the more emotional scenes hit harder.

I also had an issue with the occasional overly ornate prose. I could’ve understood if it came more from the gods, but it would just be thrown in completely random, simple scenes like Psyche going to sleep. I did like the way the gods and their Courts were described though. Like I said, I don’t read much fantasy, so I could have easily had difficulty picturing some of the aspects, but I think everything was detailed enough to really allow me to imagine how grand, fantastical, and otherwordly everything looked.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Summary: All Psyche ever wanted to do was help people, whether it's in her job as a therapist or online as an influencer. So when a mysterious invitation arrives from the most captivating man she's ever seen, asking for her assistance, she can't refuse. But Psyche soon finds herself in a world of Courts, full of debauchery and treachery, where her only option for survival is to swear a strange oath to a mysterious masked woman named Eros.

Now Psyche has to figure out how to fulfill her end of her bargain with Eros, while trying to navigate having a flame-winged goddess show up in her tiny Brooklyn apartment. But how long can she keep her curiosity at bay when Eros makes her heart tremble?

Revew: This is a less daring/spicy version of Neon Gods. I love my retellings and have to say this was a fun one!

#OathofFire #NetGalley

I devoured this book in a day, which is a testament to how much the plot drawn me in and kept me enthralled. This has great writing, the complexity of characters and emotion, it all makes for an excellent book. Would highly recommend if love mythology retelling.

A special thank you to NetGalley and Forever for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh hey it’s meeeeeee I’m reading this for work! Aaaaaaand there's a character limit on reviews here are some more words