TEST
Katee Robert continues her exploration of Greek and Roman mythological tales with Electric Idol, which retells the story of Cupid (or Eros) and Psyche. While the world building is good and the romance well-paced, the tale misses out entirely on the best point of tension in the legend, making it something of a miss for me. But Robert writes compellingly, and the book lands squarely in B territory because of that.
In this version of Olympus, we’re somewhere on the East coast in the far-flung future, and while there are no immortals in this story, this is a world dominated by social strata, and in which those strata are separated by the River Styx. The members of the ruling class are named after Greek gods. The current Psyche – Psyche Dimitrious – has been the heir apparent to her beautiful mother, who now acts the part of Demeter and takes care of agricultural matters. The upper and lower social classes are divided by the River Styx. Every woman is vying to be Hera, including the vain and surgery augmented Aphrodite of the day, but plus-sized Psyche doesn’t think she has anything special to offer. Thus, when the handsome Eros Ambrosia tells her she’s pretty, she thinks he’s joking.
Eros is his mother’s enforcer; a hitman; he bears scars from shootings and stabbings he has done in ‘Aphrodite’s’ name to help her get ahead. He has known little in the way of actual love in his life, and when Psyche helps him treat his latest wound, he feels a loyalty and sense of attachment to her. They are caught on camera together, and when his jealous mother gets wind of this she tells him to kill Psyche, cut out her heart and present it to her. Eros decides he’ll marry Psyche instead in order to preserve their lives.
The twosome then have to fashion their lives around each other under the constant, disapproving eye of Aphrodite. Eros has a lot of self-loathing to cope with, and vulnerable Psyche doesn’t think that much of herself, either. Though their sexual chemistry is strong, they must climb a proverbial Mount Olympus to be together. Can they do it?
I’m of a divided mind about Electric Idol. Roberts has a lot of fun with her noir-ish world, and Psyche and Eros are both enjoyable characters who live a hungry and deep and dark romance.
If you like your heroes super dark and desperately yearning for a taming touch, then you will like Eros. His Achilles heel is – naturally – Psyche, who learns to step out of her mother’s shadow and become her own woman.
The biggest problem with Robert’s take on the Cupid/Psyche tale is that her narrative choices denude the original myth of its tension and mystery. In most popularized versions of the tale, Eros falls for Psyche at a distance after pricking himself with one of his own arrows, then, choosing to pose as a monster, he demands Psyche become his bride, and once she is given to him, veils himself in darkness. She does not know the identity of the man she lies with every night, but they come to know each other this way until her sisters visit and whisper poison into Psyche’s ear about her husband. She is thus driven to spy upon him, and is startled to see the winged god in her bed, but he is wakened by a drop of oil fallen from the lamp, and he flees her, forcing her to go through a series of trials to win his trust back. The author’s decision to eliminate this element of conflict is such a disappointment – you’re promising me dark sexytimes and instead it’s mostly just horny people bonking each other standing up, sometimes semi-publicly. Sigh.
Robert thinks that the conflict between Psyche and Aphrodite is enough to build the story around, but that isn’t the case. After Roberta Gellis’ landmark Dazzling Brightness, authors have a pretty high standard to live up to when it comes to mythology-inspired romances, and this one doesn’t quite make it. Electric Idol brings the sizzle but not the spice, leaving behind the scent of a sometimes overwrought, sometimes slickly written novel.
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Grade: B-
Book Type: Erotic Romance
Sensuality: Hot
Review Date: 20/01/22
Publication Date: 01/2022
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
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I’m a huge fan of re-interpreting myths (I ADORE Lore Olympus and the musical Hadestown, for instance), but the key is “re-interpreting,” not “totally ignoring.” The core of Eros and Psyche is “unknown husband/lover.” Make Eros and Psyche online/virtual lovers to match the futuristic setting. Have Eros disfigured or temporarily bandaged for his injury. But if you don’t want to play with “mystery lover,” why did you pick Eros and Psyche?
“Marriage at the command of a god” is found in Peleus/Thetis (the parents of Achilles). A cursed love and the rage of Aphrodite is in the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus. Maybe one of those would have been a better choice for this story, especially because it’s kind of cool to see a less famous legend.
Thank you, that’s exactly what I was driving at!
That makes sense. But I suspect she’s picking the biggest, most well-known gods.
Honestly, I almost feel like this plot would’ve worked better as a Snow White retelling for some reason. It’s got a couple of the necessary beats but not all of them.
I know why she might want to do that (after all, Hades/Persephone revisionism is a very popular thing nowadays). I imagine her other pairings will be Hera/Zeus (or Leda/Zeus, though getting around The Swan Part might be tricky?) and maybe Dionysus/Ariadne. Is there any hint to how many volumes the series will have?
Via her website, the next book is Helen/Achilles/Patroclus, and book four is Apollo/Cassandra. I don’t think she’s announced plans beyond that.
Ooh, a poly twist, that’d be fun.
I really think it’s best to go into Robert’s mythology-inspired books anticipating something more of a “mash-up” than a direct re-telling. I’m not sure if you’ve read her Wicked Villains series (loosely-inspired by Disney movies and full of some copyright-infringement-dodging changes to names/situations) or her (apparently now on hiatus) Sabine Valley books (inspired by both the mythological story of the abduction/rape of the Sabine women and also “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”), but she did similar things there: she starts out with the bare-bones of the source material and then adds contemporary pop-culture references along with lots and lots of erotic interactions of various gender pairings and throuplings.
JMO, while I enjoyed most of the worldbuilding and general departures from the myth’s form (as this is a B-), I just felt like the author missed a major opportunity by not exploring some big moments of tension in the original myth. I was less looking for a direct retelling of same than for her to retain the elements of the myth I enjoyed and reinterpreting them through a fresh lens.
I see her world building really differently. Yes, she doesn’t hew exactly to the original myth but I really like the way she twists these stories and fits them into her modern world.
I love mythology inspired stories and will be interested to see where she goes next!
See, I don’t mind her hewing away from the myth, but there were definitely certain story beats and character moments I look for in anything that’s a retelling of the Cupid/Psyche myth. I don’t need it to be an exact identikit for the original thing, but the beats should be represented in some way.
I’m actually hoping she’ll try out Dionysus and Ariadne. That would likely work quite well within the universe she’s built.
That would be cool, wouldn’t it?
Indeed!