A Touch of Ruin

A Touch of Ruin is the second book in the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Hades x Persephone series (the first being A Touch of Darkness) by Scarlett St. Clair, who is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation. In a modern New Athens where the Olympian gods have the status of wealthy celebrities, Persephone, a young woman still learning the extent of her power as the Goddess of Spring, navigates her career as a journalist, her difficult relationship with her mother, the heartbreaks of her friends, and her passionate relationship with the God of the Underworld, Hades.

While the novel draws on typical new adult themes such as coming of age, managing relationships, and the search for identity, St. Clair’s fantasy world also explores the dangers of celebrity worship, the limits of justice, and the consequences of personal power while delivering a contemporary perspective on the themes of human suffering and fate embedded in the ancient Greek myths that provide her source material. A Touch of Ruin has also achieved popularity among the BookTok community.

This guide refers to the paperback edition published by Bloom Books, which picked up St.