Title: Mortal Gods (The Goddess War, 2)
Author: Kendare Blake
Genre: Mythology, Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Tor Teen (8th September 2015)
Blurb:

ARES, GOD OF WAR, is leading the other dying gods into battle. Which is just fine with Athena. She’s ready to wage a war of her own, and she’s never liked him anyway. If Athena is lucky, the winning gods will have their immortality restored. If not, at least she’ll have killed a bloody lot of them, and she and Hermes can die in peace.

Cassandra Weaver is a weapon of fate. The girl who kills gods. But all she wants is for the god she loved and lost to return to life. If she can’t have that, then the other gods will burn, starting with his murderer, Aphrodite.

The alliance between Cassandra and Athena is fragile. Cassandra suspects Athena lacks the will to truly kill her own family. And Athena fears that Cassandra’s hate will get them all killed.

The war takes them across the globe, searching for lost gods, old enemies, and Achilles, the greatest warrior the world has ever seen. As the struggle escalates, Athena and Cassandra must find a way to work together. Because if they can’t, fates far worse than death await.

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Review:

MORTAL GODS by Kendare Blake is the second book in The Goddess War trilogy. The book continues the stories of Cassandra and Athena from ANTIGODDESS (review). The old Greek gods are slowly dying; fading ignobly in agony. Cassandra and Athena face the oncoming battles with a fragile alliance stretched between them. And Cassandra is the girl who kills gods.

Having read and enjoyed ANTIGODDESS I have been looking forward to reading this book. MORTAL GODS was a fantastic read, even though it has been a while since I read this series I fell straight into the story; it was a really engrossing and on the whole rewarding read. There were a couple of things that niggled at me, but on the whole this was a really enjoyable read.

Athena and her brother Hermes remain in a lot of ways unchanged by the events of ANTIGODDESS, but then that is to be expected of centuries old gods I suppose. They are still losing their immortality in painful ways and fading away, but they are still very much the same characters that we meet in the first book. Blake does take the opportunity in this book to make them more fallible; we get to see how close the siblings are, and that they genuinely care for one another.

This is in contrast to Cassandra’s relationship with her brother, Henry, where the siblings aren’t quite as close. Cassandra is a very different person from the one we meet in ANTIGODDESS; she’s isolated, even amongst friends, and angry. And whilst I can understand her anger, there were times when her actions left me feeling uncomfortable.

The plot of MORTAL GODS is pretty much what readers of ANTIGODDESS would expect; in a lot of ways, it still feels like Blake is setting the scene for the overall series plot. That’s not to say that I think the book is lacking anything, because I don’t think it is. The plot is just complicated enough to keep you guessing, and there were several twist that I did not see coming at all.

MORTAL GODS is a brilliant addition to The Goddess War trilogy. Blake continues the story brilliantly, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the third book. If you are a fan of re-imaginings of Greek mythology then you should definitely check this series out.