Medusa, A Love Story by Sasha Summers

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Local Library

Read: February 7, 2013

It's said love can change a person. Medusa wasn't always a monster... Medusa is ruled by duty, to her Titan father and the Goddess Athena. She's no room for the tenderness her warrior guard, Ariston, stirs. When Olympus frees her from service, her heart leads her into the arms of the guard she loves... and curses her as the creature with serpent locks. Ariston goes to war with a full heart... and dreadful foreboding. He learns too late of the danger Medusa faces, alone, and a Persian blade sends him into the Underworld. But death, curses, nor the wrath of the Gods will keep him from returning to her. Poseidon will use Greece's war to get what he wants: Medusa. He does not care that she belongs to another. He does not care that she will be damned. He is a God, an Olympian, and she will be his.

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Medusa by Bernini

I have such mixed feelings about Sasha Summers' Medusa, A Love Story that I hardly know where to begin. The piece hit the ground running so I started fairly optimistic. Unfortunately the book lost steam somewhere between points A and B and ultimately left me wanting. Don't get me wrong, I love how Summers adapted the mythology to her fiction, but the telling of it threw me. In the end, I feel most comfortable awarding three stars.

The myth itself is fairly common knowledge. Medusa was punished by the goddess Athena who erased her elegant features and transformed her beautiful hair into a tangled hissing mass of live serpents. Her altered appearance was so terrifying that anyone who looked on Medusa turned instantly to stone. Many attempted to defeat her, but it was the hero Perseus who found a means to her undoing.

Alone the legend is pretty cut and dry but Summers adds flesh to the bare bones, gifting the cast a degree of substance. She has absolutely no trouble breathing life into the myth, I didn't feel she dug as deep as she could have. Summers' characters are believable, but lack the complexity I look for.

My second concern was the pacing. The narrative slows so frequently and for such lengths that I often found my mind wandering. I don't like having to force myself through whole passages and though I appreciated the story as a whole, I can't say Summers' style of writing was quite in line with my personal taste.

While I didn't enjoy this one as much as I thought I would, I am still optimistic about the series and hope book two, For the Love of Hades, is more satisfying than its predecessor. 

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"The love I have for you gives me breath and strength. You will always hold my heart. Let it give you strength to do what must be done. For you will be my lady forever."

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