Welcome Back, Booklovers! I've been wanting to read more science fiction by Black authors so when Tor Books gave me the opportunity to read Destroyer of Light I took on the challenge.
There's an alien race called krestge who invaded Earth and the remaining inhabitants of Earth fled to the planet of Eleusis. A woman named Deidra has her daughter, Cora kidnapped from her by the rebel army. The rebel army is kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers, sex trafficking them, and killing them. Dr. Aidoneus Okoni, the ruler of this army, plans to use Cora’s unique powers to shift into another dimension.
It follows a few different characters which include a set of twins investing the kidnapping of a missing child of mixed alien and human parentage. He has a special eye color which Okani is seeking. It also follows Stefonie who has genetic coding that can blend in with time and move around and experience other memories. I didn't really care about the twins and they weren't as heavily featured as Cora who despite all the sexual violence against her had a compelling story. The story flips back and forth between years, weeks, hours, and present day which makes it hard to follow along at times.
I thought the author did something very different than many authors are doing with their retellings of Persephone. Don't come into this book expecting a Hades and Persephone romance because you'll be greatly disappointed. This book instead goes dark with the myth of Hade's kidnapping of Persephone. There were frequent scenes depicting child rape and violence at the hands of child soldiers. The audiobook had great narrators who really brought this story to life by knowing when to inflict the right emotions. They kept me reading but up until the end it was a very confusing story. After I finished I was still in a bit of a haze trying to make sense of everything.
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