• Author: Phoenicia Rogerson
• Series: Standalone
• Genre: Greek Myth Re-telling
• No. of pages: 400
• Dates read: 20.06.2023 – 23.06.2023
• Publishing Date: 31.08.2023
• Star Rating: 4 stars

Plot: This should be the story of Hercules: his twelve labours, his endless adventures…everyone’s favourite hero, right? Well, it’s not. This is the story of everyone else:

• Alcmene: Herc’s mother (She has knives everywhere)
• Hylas: Herc’s first friend (They were more than friends)
• Megara: Herc’s wife (She’ll tell you about their marriage)
• Eurystheus: Oversaw Herc’s labours (Definitely did not hide in a jar)

His friends, his enemies, his wives, his children, his lovers, his rivals, his gods, his victims. It’s time to hear their stories.

Now, I recently made a blog post about my feelings towards greek myth re-tellings and how I was unsure of them recently. It all started to feel a bit oversaturated and I was planning on taking a step back from them.

And then I was sent Herc by Phoenicia Rogerson. Now this is a greek myth re-telling I can get behind. Thank you to HQ and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

So to talk about what makes Herc different from other books is at its core this. It takes the element of most greek myth re-tellings (making the narrator one person removed from the hero) but times this by 10. Instead of following the love interest of the story or centring the women of the story, she does both. She DOES IT ALL!! We get the POV of every important figure in Hercules’ life in this book. From his family, to his friends to his lovers etc.

This made for such an interesting reading experience as you were in the minds of so many different characters and your perception of Hercules was constantly changing with each POV. You truly don’t know who Hercules is because of this and I think that mirrors how we look at Hercules as a legendary figure anyway. So many sources, so many myths and we don’t truly know the man and I feel that this idea was explored very well within the book. That doesn’t mean you can’t connect to Hercules as a character but it does make him incredibly complex and layered which is really interesting to read.

One other standout element of this story was how funny this book was. I did not expect to be laughing out loud on my commute as I read about some of the awful labours Hercules had to go through but the writing is just so funny! That doesn’t mean Rogerson can’t do the emotional and heart wrenching moments because she well and truly can. I have only experienced 2 books this year that truly made me feel that my heart was being slowly crushed due to the emotional intensity of a singular scene and this book is one of them!

I also learnt so much more about the legend surrounding Hercules than I thought. I thought I knew all that there was to know about him but this book opened my eyes to more of his story.

Overall, this was an exhilarating, heartbreaking and hilarious look at the story of Hercules.