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  • A Touch of Ruin

  • Hades & Persephone, Book 2
  • Written by: Scarlett St. Clair
  • Narrated by: Meg Sylvan
  • Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (148 ratings)

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A Touch of Ruin

Written by: Scarlett St. Clair
Narrated by: Meg Sylvan
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Publisher's Summary

Persephone's relationship with Hades has gone public, and the resulting media storm disrupts her normal life and threatens to expose her as the Goddess of Spring.

Hades, God of the Dead, is burdened by a hellish past that everyone's eager to expose in an effort to warn Persephone away.

Things only get worse when a horrible tragedy leaves Persephone's heart in ruin and Hades refusing to help. Desperate, she takes matters into her own hands, striking bargains with severe consequences.

Faced with a side of Hades she never knew and crushing loss, Persephone wonders if she can truly become Hades' queen.

Contains mature themes.

©2020 Scarlett St. Clair (P)2020 Tantor

What listeners say about A Touch of Ruin

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Hard to get through

I enjoyed the first book in the series as well as the story from Hades POV. I found I was unable to get through this book. Honestly a frustrating book to listen to mainly due to characters idiotic decision making. So many irrational decisions without any thought of consequences. Understood this is an erotic novel but sex cannot be the ex machina that just fixes every conflict between Hades and Persephone.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Omg

This series is amazing. From the love to heartache it’s such a wonderful story. You fall in love with the characters and find yourself looking up fan art on Pinterest just to experience it that much more! Can’t wait to listen to the next one ♥️

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

The first book was better.

I struggled to get thru this book just…I found the was lack of growth in this story to be disappointing and there was no character growth just…meh.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Way too much Sex

Was hard to get through as there was so much sex like every chapter. I really just wanted to continue the story line so I skipped a lot of scenes. Definitely felt this read being very toxic relationship vibes, fixing all problems with sex. Just not healthy. Didn’t want to continue the series after this book but book 3 was way better

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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Good but …

As much as I love this story it was hard to get threw this book. It felt like every chapter had some sort of sex scene in it. I love a good spicy book but this was just too much and didn’t really seem to add to the story. I mostly ended up fast forwarding threw most of them because they got to be repetitive.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I love this book but…

I love these books so much. My only complaint is there is way too much sex. I’m a fan of sex scenes but this series goes way over board and was even way too much for me. It seemed to be every half hour there was a sex scene. Made it very difficult to listen to anywhere and I ended up forwarding through most of them because it was so excessive. It was super disappointing but otherwise I loved the books.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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wow!!!

amazing!!! story had me fully immersed in the world and routing for the characters. I'm hooked.
and the narrator.....omg woman.....naughty naughty little thing. I'm now onto the 3rd book as I can't wait to see what is next.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great story

Absolutely love this book and the whole series, the only trouble I had was a few of the “voices” were hard to get past. Other than that, very enjoyable!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A bit of a struggle..

I really enjoyed the first book in this series (I also highly recommend reading Game of Fate from Hades perspective before starting this book), but this one was sooo hard to get into.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do love this story. I love the world St. Clair has created and the characters are all so great and well-developed... I just struggled SO hard connecting with Persephone in this one.

She spends the first 80% of this book sorting her sh*t out and it’s painful in some places just to get through it. She is so insecure and it was frustrating as a listener when she would jump to these insane conclusions because of her insecurity over her relationship. I understand that her trauma is a big part of her and having to overcome it is part of her character growth, but it was very hard to connect with at times as her reactions were SO over the top.

One glaring error that I struggled with was how in multiple places St. Clair mistakenly refers to Antony as an ogre... he is a cyclops, we know this, this bugged me. And Hades was notably absent throughout most of this book. I hope the next story from his perspective sheds some light on this.

I will say though, the book is worth finishing and the ending makes up for a lot of the rough parts in the middle. I’m really looking forward to the next book and I hope we see Persephone grow more (and maybe complain about how everyone else is so wrong and she is so right, a little less!).

Sylvan does an excellent job of capturing the emotion throughout the story and she is great at creating a distinct variety of character voices. However I struggled more throughout this book as her voice, in attempting to match Persephone’s glum mood throughout the story, made just about every sentence sound like a huge depressed sigh. It does pick up (thankfully) later on when the tone of the story changes, but I had a hard time in the beginning adjusting to this change from the first book.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Great book but way too much sex

I have binge listened to this series and just purchased the book from Hades POV, I love them. It’s a good story and the narrator does a brilliant job of bringing it to life.

However, in the second book, if you cut out all the sex scenes the book would literally be 2 hours long. There is very little plot exploration and everything is solved whilst they’re having sex. Like come on, someone important to you just died and you’re talking about it whilst having sex directly after it happened???? Literally every issue is solved whilst having sex. Persephone lies and betrays him? Don’t worry we’ll just sex it out.
Honestly by the end of the book I would cringe every time they started to have sex because I was just so over it, and that’s coming from someone who loves a good smutty scene.

There really wasn’t much else to the book other than a vague attempt at a plot around the smut. Plot points that could have made for a very interesting read had they been explored in more depth were skimmed over and resolved in a page or without truly being resolved.

Hades was absent for most of this book, only appearing to ‘save the day’ or for smutty scenes. Persephone, where can I start? Mistake after mistake without ever really learning from them. She lied, she deceived, she betrayed. It was frustrating and I feel like she becomes very preachy in a lot of places for someone who is screwing everything up so badly. I found her very selfish through a lot of this and Hades just took her back without voicing how it made him feel because of good sex.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book and the third looks set to be amazing too, but this one became very repetitive and a little cringe toward the end. I’d definitely recommend listening just to set up for the third, but don’t expect amazing an amazing plot because there isn’t really one.

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  • Elizabeth M
  • 2021-06-07

I guess I’m not the only one...

Persephone was/is an awful character. It seems like I wasn’t the only one that thinks that. The entire book was MC creating all of the problems and then complains about how unfair everything was. Shes too naive and I actually feel sorry for Hades a lot of the time. She’s just so mean to Hades and blows everything out of proportion. I put in the time so I’m going to finish the book but I don’t think I’ll finish the series.

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  • Angela Perkins
  • 2021-11-02

the main character was annoying

I had fun with the first book but I couldn't make it through this one. Persephone was so immature and obnoxious. I couldn't like her or root for her.

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  • Angela Formby
  • 2022-02-28

No Character Growth

Book 1: Persephone learns communication is important and she shouldn’t go against the advice EVERYONE has given her just because it goes against what she wants to do. She whines. She doubts Hades. She gets angry. She pouts some more and *reflects*.
Book 2: I tried. I really really did. I couldn’t even finish it. Once again, Persephone has the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon. Two books and absolutely no character growth. She’s still trying to *find herself* all the while whining about how things don’t go her way and she decides to force them to go her way by taking shortcuts.

Abridged version: Emo Olaf from Frozen 2 tries to tell a spicy 🌶 story. 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄

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  • CHEFPK
  • 2021-06-27

Meh..

I really want to say I enjoyed this book. However, I am saddened to say Persephone made this series almost unbearable. I had such high expectations for this series, being a Hades and Persephone fan, but it fell short. If it weren't for my inability to complete something I have already started, I would have stopped this pain in the beginning.

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4 people found this helpful

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  • nicole101
  • 2020-11-30

Good read, even better narrator

The narrator is what made these books so good. She read with such passion. Pretty good series, excited for the third book to come out

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  • Hannah Kroesche
  • 2020-11-24

Great Series! Can't wait for the next one!!

St. Clair's books are fun to listen to. Espically with Meg Sylvan reading! The story is very good and I love the romance and passion that St. Clair puts into the characters. I actually cried a little at points. love it!

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  • Terra
  • 2022-02-08

Entry Level pt 2

This story continues to disapoint more than I try to finish it. I keep holding out that it will get just a little bit better. The idea of mythology but drama in modern times is promising. However, I keep trying to finish this book. Just a little bit longer; maybe it will get better. It's just too dumbed down, very bland, less adult. There is some steamy moment, but it's overwhelmed with how toxic and poorly fleshed out the characters are. This disappoints me to write this. It feels flat for me. The narrator is doing her absolute best. She is rocking what material she is given, but the story lacks luster.

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  • Rachel Lytton
  • 2022-01-25

Expected More

Had expectations of a normal listening experience, just something enjoyable to listen to while cleaning or running errands etc….. I think the combination of the MC actions, reactions to consequences and the narrators whining grating voice…. Smh. The MC has to be the most immature, juvenile, reckless, whining, entitled, temper tantrum prone, irritating BRAT ever written. Poor Hades, fated to life with this ignorant child who first makes problems, makes the worst possible decisions to deal with the problems she makes and then WHINES non-stop about how it’s not fair. Literally every character in the book, spends the entirety of the 12.5 hr run time, warning her in every way possible to not do what she’s about to do, only for her to run off, ignore everyone, make the wrong move, then whine about how it’s not fair that it blows up in her face. Even whining to Hecate that of course she wants it all and she wants it all now, never mind she destroyed everything herself. Basically if Veruca Salt was in her twenties and the goddess of spring… that’s pretty much the best description that can be given for this MC. With that said, of course I’m going to read/listen to the next one. Fingers crossed either the MC matures into a tolerable creature or Hades comes to his senses and sends the MC back to her mother’s glass prison.

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  • Nila L
  • 2021-10-18

love the series

I do really love the premise of the story and the plot is really good but the main character is super annoying...

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  • Morgan
  • 2020-12-31

Sooooo good!

This book is amazing! The world that she has written is beautiful and well rounded. Does it have its flaws yes. But it is nothing in the world that is going on. I love this story so much and can’t wait to get my hands onto the next book.

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