#24 Neon Gods by Katee Robert, Zara Hampton-Brown (Narrator), Alex Moorcock (Narrator)

 

I had been seeing this come up quite a bit in my social media feeds so I decided to give it a whirl.  It is a modern retelling of Persephone and Hades.  She is fleeing an arranged marriage to Zeus.  The gods rule Olympus with some inheriting their titles while others are voted in.  This is a modern day setting with some sort of technological barrier keeping them mostly isolated from the rest of the world. There is some trade with the outside world but that is controlled by Poseidon.  The current Hades has not been seen across the river Styx and Persephone is running as fast as she can to the river ditching her plans after being ambushed with the marriage proposal.   Hades finds her and helps her get away and she comes to find out that everything she has been told about him is wrong.  Hades has an axe to grind against the current Zeus, so he is more than happy to thwart him even if this means this finally kicks off his revenge against Zeus.   There are sparks between the two almost immediately and they reach out to Demeter for help against Zeus.  There is a lot of politics and the worldbuilding has me very interested in the setting.  The romance was front and center with the story and made it all more enjoyable.