First thank you to netgalley and publishers for the opportunity to read more about Hera. Second if you are someone who struggles with reading themes of abuse and SA this book does contain these topics, so please proceed with care.

I absolutely love all things Greek mythology and Jennifer Saint is one of my go-to authors when I want to read up on the Goddesses and God's. Most likely if you know who Hera was, then you know her as a jealous and vengeful Goddess, but honestly can one blame her? Ideally her target should have been Zeus rather than his victims.

I appreciate how the author didn't make Hera one dimensional and that she had a bit of depth as the story progresses. She was not just portrayed as the evil step mother and scorned wife. I feel like there could have been more focus when it came to some of the characterization. To me, it was a bit of a slow start, however the last bit of the book and the last few paragraphs made up for it and were superb.

Overall I really enjoyed this read and cannot wait to see who Saint captures in her next book.

3.75 stars

I’ve loved Saint’s previous books, but Hera is the toughest one to read and review. Greek mythology is rife with badly behaving gods, and this story does NOT shy away from the more brutal aspects. It needs a lot of content warnings for SA, so please be aware before you pick this up.

Unending impotent rage is how I’d describe this version of Hera. To be fair, my expectations were quite high for this book, and I was looking for a version of her that took some power back or triumphed in some way. But 75% of this book is her thinking she’s gotten some sort of payback on Zeus, and then it all falling apart. We do eventually, at the very end, see her claim her power. But at that point, the era of the gods has passed.

There’s some great philosophical stuff near the end on gods and their relationship with both power and their worshippers, and which way power actually flows. And it’s all very well written. But at the end of the day, this is my least favorite of her books (Atalanta is my fav now).

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the preview. All opinions are my own

I liked this retelling. Hera, Zeus' wife, is often described generally as jealous. In this novel, she's often vengeful, but in a much more nuanced way than mere jealousy. Hera never wanted to marry Zeus in the first place. He raped her and forced her into the role of his wife and, ironically, the goddess and ideal of marriage. Jealousy falsely implies she's possessive of Zeus and his attention, but instead, she rages at his sexual predation. Because she can't fight Zeus himself and win, she unfairly takes out her wrath on his human victims instead.

This novel incorporates a lot of Greek myths, obviously, but it's interesting that some become important events in this novel's plot, while others, like Paris and the Golden Apple, are just rumors about the gods from mortals. It has some interesting ideas about gods needing worship from humans to sustain them, more than the humans need the gods.

Because this was a free digital ARC from Netgalley, there were a few errors and typos. Here, I noticed words being used incorrectly or confusingly at times. For example, a palace is described as somnolent (that is, it makes people sleepy). It makes no sense in context, but maybe the final version will replace it with opulent or something that fits better.