The Lottery (A Shade of Hades #1)

A girl named Persephone--Kore--daughter of the harvest. A prince of the Underworld, unsuited for darkness. And a widower God with an empty heart.

The Immortal Lottery will bring them together and tear them apart.


The first thing you need to know is that I'm not special.

My sister is the beauty. My brother is the brains. I am ordinary.

Yet, somehow, both of them went unchosen for the Immortal Lottery.

They picked me. Boring.  Unenchanted. Imperfect. Me.

My name is Persephone—found hidden in a sea of amber grain and named a child of the harvest goddess. I nearly met my death as a babe. The scythes of the farmers are sharp as sin, and they cut the stalks of the ripened wheat without mercy. I was saved through a stroke of fate.

The old man who found me said I glowed with an ethereal light and he saw me through the curtain of grass before he swung his blade. Only for a moment, I shone like gossamer stars. He believed me God-kissed. That gleam has never returned to me, and I have always wondered why. I believe the old man was mistaken. He didn't see a light at all.

As I said, I am not special.

The moment I am handed the golden rose, that changes. I become estranged from my adoptive parents. I am no longer loved by my sister or cherished by my brother. They hate me, for I have received the thing they have yearned for--a calling to enter the maze beneath. My siblings become my enemies. I am an orphan once more.

Now, I'll compete for a place among the Gods. I am bound for the Underworld, where I will become a consort, or a servant, or a sacrifice. The moment the 'Son of Many Souls'—Haemon—sees me, I realize that I don't know which fate I truly desire.

But Hades, his father and God of the Underworld, also watches me. I am the namesake of his late wife, a temptation even the Lord of Death can't ignore.

And in the Immortal Lottery, every God and Goddess has an equal chance to snag the prey they crave.


***
The Lottery is the first novel of the 'A Shade of Hades' series. This is a planned larger world that will include 'A Shade of Poseidon' and 'A Shade of Zeus'. Explore the Underworld's maze of unwanted spirits, the vast undersea kingdom of dying oceans, and ethereal Olympus in the ever-shifting skies.