Review: Cruel Seduction by Katee Robert

He was my enemy. My lover. My husband.

And the one man I swore by all Olympus I would destroy.

Aphrodite has never flinched at getting her perfectly manicured hands dirty, and she’s not about to start now—even if that means marrying Olympus’s enemy number one, the new Hephaestus. She has a wicked plan to keep her deadly new husband off-balance, seducing the one person he seems to care about most in this world: Pandora, a woman as beautiful as she is sweet.

Two can play the seduction game, however, and Hephaestus is all too happy to put his new wife in her place. Her ex, Adonis, seems like he’ll do the trick. It doesn’t hurt that he’s gorgeous in the way of fallen angels, either.

The only problem with using seduction as a weapon? Hearts are all too quick to get involved. With Hephaestus and Aphrodite trading venomous strikes that feel a whole lot like foreplay, lines become blurred and emotions entangled. But a broken heart may be the least of their worries. With unrest in Olympus reaching new heights, these bedroom games may have deadly consequences for themselves, their city, and everyone they’ve come to love.

I feel like I’ve said this about almost every book in the Dark Olympus series but Cruel Seduction is one of my top favorites now. I was very captivated by the story and the relationships between Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Adonis and Pandora. This is book 5 already and sometimes a series gets less good as it goes on but Dark Olympus just gets better the more time I spend into this world. I also love how Katee Robert makes sure to make the books as inclusive as she can.

Cruel Seduction is the retelling of Aphrodite and Hephaestus but also of Adonis and Pandora thrown into the mix. Retelling should be used very lightly because there aren’t many aspects of the actually myths actually in the books but for this series this is actually okay with me because it’s Katee Robert, she just does it so well.

Now that Aphrodite has married Olympus’ enemy number one, someone she hates, all she wants to do is get revenge by seducing the one and only person he cares about which is Pandora. Meanwhile Hephaestus is doing the same with Aphrodite’s ex, Adonis. I know this all sounds very messy but I promise that it works very well for the story. And in the interim of all this seduction taking place the Thirtheen of Olympus are starting to get attacked left and right by the events that Minos put into place.

Overall, Cruel Seduction is one of Katee Robert’s finest work. Smoking hot sex scenes, political intrigue, action and cameos of secondary characters from previous books made this one of my favorites in the Dark Olympus series.

About the author:

Katee Robert is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Entertainment Weekly calls her writing “unspeakably hot.” Her books have sold over a million copies. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, children, a cat who thinks he’s a dog, and two Great Danes who think they’re lap dogs.

Katee is represented by Laura Bradford at Bradford Literary Agency.

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