Oath of Fire
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 13 Aug 2024
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- £7.99
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- Pre-Order
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
This lush and gripping sapphic retelling of the Psyche and Eros legend combines Greek mythology with a fae court feel.
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. Uncanny vistas, a spacious mansion, and decadent experiences are all Psyche’s for the taking—so long as she helps Eros, and so long as she never looks under Eros’s mask.
But how long can she keep her curiosity at bay when Eros makes her heart tremble?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Riviera (the Ascendant trilogy) brings a fae aesthetic to this chaotic sapphic reframing of the Eros and Psyche myth. After therapist Psyche loses her clinic job, her long-distance gaming friend Bondi convinces her to accept a mysterious party invitation hiding in her Instagram messages. She ends up in another world, at a debauched revelry full of masked gods who cannot lie, but are still far from straightforward. Zephyr, her patron for the night, requests that Psyche help his friend Eros, the goddess of passion. Though Eros refuses Psyche's attempts to act as her therapist, she binds Psyche to her as an Oathsworn, sealing the deal with a fiery kiss before sending her home. While Psyche researches a way to see Eros again, people on both sides of the veil take issue with her involvement with the Wine-Dark Court of Gods. Real-world aspects of the story—like Psyche's longing to escape her sisters' shadows—get lost before the end, while on the mythological side, the worldbuilding feels fuzzy. Despite some mature themes, the story often reads like a YA quest novel. Still, the thrill of encountering the unknown comes through clearly, and Psyche's emotional arc gets a satisfying resolution. It's rocky, but there's plenty here to appeal to fans of Sarah J. Maas.
