I saw online that this book had been read and recommended by one of my favourite authors, and wanted to see for myself whether the rave review was merited. Being a sapphic retelling of ancient Green origin, this further piqued my interest. I was luckily granted early access by NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!).

Understanding didn’t take long. The first few pages of this book demonstrated such lyrical prose and vivid storytelling that I was completely hooked from then on. It was a constant battle between wanting to devour it in one and wanting to take it slowly and savour it. I did take it slowly but found myself thinking constantly about it and itching to jump back in. Now it’s finished I don’t know what to do with myself and feel a little lost!

I don’t want to say too much about the actual story for fear of spoilers, but it’s about Psyche, a beautiful young mortal woman who captivates the (unwanted) attention of countless men and angers the goddess Aphrodite, whose shrines become abandoned in favour of watching Psyche. Eros is tasked by Aphrodite to make Psyche pay for this - but it doesn’t quite go according to plan…

If you enjoyed The Song of Achilles, do yourself a favour and prioritise this as your next read - you won’t regret it.

The Palace of Eros is a queer retelling of the myth of Eros and Psyche. It follows Psyche as she grows up in a small village and draws the ire of Aphrodite through no fault of her own, until she is ultimately swept away to Eros’ palace, where the god has only one demand: she can never be seen in the light, by day or by lantern. Eros, in turn, must keep the relationship secret from her mother, Aphrodite, who originally tasked her with killing Psyche for her slight.

In the way of damned lovers, Eros and Psyche spend their time together in an intimate paradise, with Psyche using her days to explore art and the surrounding woodland. The prose of this book is absolutely gorgeous, and kept me enthralled through the entire read. Despite being familiar with the myth, I found myself constantly wanting to turn the page to see how De Robertis would craft the story in this unique fashion.

If you’re a fan of Greek mythology, or even if you want a sapphic book with a strong feminist undercurrent, The Palace of Eros is a great pick.

"The Palace of Eros" has an interesting premise, and an absolutely horrible (at least to me) writing style. I actually started skimming about half way through because I got so bored by the flowery prose. The plot was minimal, instead the author focuses on the characters' sex life, which just doesn't lend itself to a lot of character development or suspense.
The ending didn't really make sense to me either: the main conflict was basically resolved off-screen, which I certainly didn't find satisfying in any way.

The Palace of Eros is a Greek myth retelling that follows Psyche, a beautiful young woman who has unfortunately caught the attention of the goddess Aphrodite, and Eros, Aphrodite’s daughter and the goddess of desire, that chronicles their all-consuming love that threatens the power of the gods. I appreciated that Psyche was written to be more than just a beautiful girl and instead Eros’ attraction is not purely psychical and is alternatively a result of Psyche’s pure feminine anger shining brightly through her she is paraded by her father as an object for men to gawk at. The resulting marriage and passion between the two characters was believable and well-written and stayed true to Eros’ role as the goddess of desire. The themes of gender identity and bodily autonomy were fantastically written and were a strong message throughout the story. The prose in this book was beautiful and transported me into the world created. I would recommend The Palace of Eros to readers wanting a beautifully written queer love story that perseveres against the wrath of the gods.

*Thank you to the publisher for sending me an early copy in exchange for an honest review*

This retelling of Eros & Psyche follows the original closely, but with the major difference that Eros is a woman (most of the time, she's fluid in gender too). If you're familiar with the story, the book will be fairly predictable, but the characterization and writing were quite good and engaging, I could finish the book quite fast.

Psyche is a mortal girl who never did well fitting into the mold of a ancient Greek woman and future wife and I like how het relationship with beauty was explored. Psyche was so beautiful men came as suitors purely to see her and claim she's more beautiful than Aphrodite and Psyche is deeply uncomfortable with all this attention.

Eros is the daughter of Aphrodite and sent to punish Psyche because Aphrodite is jealous, but instead falls in love with her. The circumstances of their relationship aren't ideal and I love that this retelling explores how the secrecy really wasn't fair to Psyche.

I also really appreciated the characterization of Aphrodite and Eros's relationship with her. Aphrodite is the antagonist of the original myth, but here she's a complex character and ultimately Eros does want a good relationship with her mother and they have a the two of them against the rest of the gods sort of relationship.

I would recommend this to fans of books like the Song of Achilles and Ariadne who would like to see more sapphic myths.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC copy.

This book had me grabbed from the blur straight away, but it's going to be a DNF for me. I managed about a quarter of this book, and I've just had to stop. I just found myself bored it started well, but then I felt it was going nowhere ....im gutted as Greek mythology is my go-to....I suppose you can't love every book you pick up.

I was really excited to read a queer retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth. I was disappointed.

I could not stand the writing style. Lyrical writing can be poetic, this was bloated with unnecessary similes and metaphors. The words start to lose meaning.

The dense prose distracts from the utter lack of plot or real character depth.

The author made the baffling decision to have Psyche’s chapters in first person and Eros’ in third person. Eros was the more interesting character, first person would have given more insight into the character.

3.5 stars

Loved most of the book but it just did not have the magical charm I expected.
I still really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to others.

While we all know the story of Psyche and Eros, we as readers may not realise the full impact that there story had on others. A beautiful story about the power of autonomy.

A story of fighting for one’s autonomy among so many uphill battles, Psyche shows so much strength in that journey for true happiness and love. Could Eros give her everything she wanted and more? Or would their palace only become yet another cage with rules that are hard to follow whilst also being authentic to herself?

For me, the mark of a good book is one that I don’t want to put down - and The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis was absolutely that. This is the tale of Psyche and Eros, but it’s also the tale of what happens around them - the other lives they touch, and how their stories and interwoven in to the tales of other people, other women, other gods.

As a huge fan of Madeline Miller I was SO excited to read this – and I wasn’t disappointed. This novel is heart-wrenching, hard-hitting, beautifully written, sumptuous, poetic, romantic, and (because Eros is the goddess of desire) utterly scorching in places.

I loved how the author switched between Eros and Psyche’s point of view in this novel, and I personally loved the switch between first person (Psyche) and third person (Eros) as I think that mirrored the distance between Psyche and Eros in the novel, the gap between humans and mortals, and was a perfect mirror to the darkness that conceals and veils their relationship from the prying eyes of vengeful gods (like Zeus! Gosh that was an amazing subplot).

A gorgeous retelling, and one I will no doubt read again!

A big thank you to the author, Netgalley, HarperFiction and Borough Press for my advanced e-copy.

2.5/5 I was all in for a lesbian retelling of Greek mythology, but somehow just couldn't get into the book. I might give it another go a few weeks later, but for the moment, it's a DNF.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

a bold, daring and sensuous retelling of the myth of eros and psyche. beautiful prose with stream of consciousness that follows both the main characters, entangling the reader in their thoughts and internal conflicts. an interesting take on gender and sexuality, with characters unapologetic about who they are or who they want to be.

i was very entertained by this book and will be checking out more books from the author :)

a big thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing this arc!

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of The Palace of Eros, out in the UK in August! Cantoras is one of my all time favourites and so I had high hopes for this one - which I’m glad to say were met!! I did think this was going to be a perfect, no notes read (the first half was for me), and while it wasn’t flawless, it’s still in my top reads for the year so far and is just such a gorgeous depiction of desire, love and gender fluidity.
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I’m not at all familiar with Greek mythology, which may be a benefit to me - it meant I could just appreciate this story of Eros and Psyche as it was, without comparisons to the original. In Caro de Robertis’ version, Eros is a nonbinary deity (using various pronouns throughout) and as you may expect in a novel about the goddess of desire, it gets spicy 👀 But it was like, flowery spice - the prose is absolutely gorgeous, all honey and silk and the like. Nothing is generally stated in simple terms but that doesn’t stop the spice.
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Psyche whisked away from a miserable life being subjected to male desire constantly, apparently bringing shame to her family despite them encouraging the lecherous mens’ behaviour. Aphrodite grows jealous of this mortal woman drawing attention from her, and sends Eros to sort it out. But Eros falls instead, devising a plan to whisk Psyche away to a palace built just for them.
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In a way my feelings about the book mirrored Psyche’s journey - enraptured at first, but slowly beginning to want more. Eros’ palace promises freedom - all the food and sex and painting and weaving Psyche could desire - but that freedom has its limits, both physical and metaphorical. I want to stress that I did not lose interest, but once the problems started to occur, I was a tad less mesmerised by the story. However, still a lot of good stuff going on, particularly around gender and power and the way women are expected to be passive and shallow, but Psyche realising that she has the capacity to be anything she wants to be. I obviously also loved Eros being nonbinary, refusing to exist in one box or another, as others would prefer, but to exist completely without boundaries.
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I have seen some other reviewers comment on whether the attitudes of other Greek gods towards Eros was ‘accurate’ in terms of that society, but here my obliviousness about Greek mythology plays in my favour, as such details did not detract from my enjoyment of the story at all.
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Overall, stunning prose, incredible chemistry, gorgeous characters, just a beauty of a retelling!

A poetic retelling of a sapphic Eros and Psyche, where Eros being gender-fluid felt perfect and truly suited their character. I loved this interpretation of them.

However, I struggled with the depiction of their relationship in the book. Eros and Psyche's bond quickly devolves into a purely physical connection over a few rushed days. This made it difficult to believe their love was anything more than sexual lust. You get very little insight into their true feelings, which is crucial given that the lack of sight plays a significant role in many chapters.

~ ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review ~

3/5 ⭐️

i love that this myth was retold as a sapphic story in this novel because it makes so much sense. i also love the fact that eros and psyche’s story isn’t the only myth retold in this novel and we get to see how these figures influence other stories in mythology, such as, daphne and apollo.

i enjoyed eros’ explanation of what it meant to be gender fluid and how she likened it to another god’s transformation - ‘you don’t have to be male to ravage someone […] when he changes into a swan, eagle, serpent, any animal form, that part of him as far as we know has stayed the same’ .i also LOVE the zeus hate.

‘though she relished each of those forms, neither was the whole of her; she was both of these, she spanned the realms, she held it all’

my main qualm with the prose in this novel was that it felt like it was trying too hard at some points to be profound. there truly was beautiful writing, but at times i felt that my eyes were wandering down the page and skipping parts of the writing because so many unnecessary words were used. that being said there were nuggets of gold in the rubble and some of the narration of eros and psyche’s intimacy was beautiful.

i also liked that eros’ perspective is in third person as it maintains some distance from the reader that mimics the distance between eros and psyche. i would have liked to spend time inside of eros’ head though.

i think with some tightening of the plot (too much time in the palace imo) and of the writing i think this book could have been very amazing, but i have been left slightly disappointed.

2.5
I love Greek mythology and retellings but sadly this just didn't hit the mark for me. It had so much potential but I just didn't connect with the characters so I just didn't particularly care? I did finish it though as I wanted to know what happened and I did really enjoy some aspects so it wasn't a DNF or 1 star.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC.

The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis had an interesting premise, with it being a queer retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros, and the start of the novel was very promising. I enjoyed the way they introduced Psyche and her childhood, and how Eros viewed her at the beginning. I also liked the way the author dealt with Eros' gender fluidity, it fits with the character, and it was a unique conception of the character.

But as the novel went on, it was hard to get through due to the fact that the scenes felt repetitive and it did not feel like much was happening until the very last section of the novel which felt a bit rushed, The relationship between Eros and Psyche felt emotionless, and I did not feel like there was enough development there, and would have liked to see that. I liked the prose for the most part and how lyrical it was but there were sections where it felt too over the top. The relationship between Eros and Aphrodite was interesting and I would say it was my favourite part of the novel.

While this novel had potential and there were parts that I did enjoy reading, most of it felt dragged and I feel like more development is needed.

I expected more from this book and was a bit disappointed when it didn't reach my expectations. I love Greek mythology, so I was quite excited to read a retelling of Eros and Psyche.

It started of quite well and I was hooked, but then, around the middle, it got quite repetitive. It felt like the author had a word count to reach since I felt like I was reading about the same scene over and over again. This made reading the book for me a bit boring. However, I did like the final part even though it was a little rushed.

Another thing I liked was the relationship between Eros and Psyche (thank god, because that's what the book is about). They had a lot of beautifully written scenes, but again, a lot of repetitive scenes.

Overall, I had fun reading this, but it sadly didn't hit the way I thought it would.

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thank you Netgallery for this advanced readers copy for an honest review.
The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis had some incredible writing in it. From the beginning I was captivated with how poetic it was and loved the idea of this mystical story.

It does sadden me to write this review a little as the idea of a queer Greek mythology retelling sounded incredible.
My issue with this novel, was that the relationship between Eros and Psyche didn’t feel as though it was actually there. At times so many words were said without anything being developed or told properly. I truly believe I would have loved this book so much more if their relationship was more developed and had more emotion in it. I also found that at times there was a severe lack of dialogue which could sometimes make the novel difficult to follow.

Without a doubt Caro De Robertis can create such beautiful writing which is a joy to read but this book just wasn’t really for me.