This week’s review comes to us from Joyce Thierry Llewellyn, who has chosen My Ex From Hell, a YA novel by Tellulah Darling.

Joyce Thierry Llewellyn is a film and television screenwriter and story editor, screenwriting instructor at the Vancouver Film School, and heads off into the sunset whenever she can to explore new territories for her creative non-fiction travel writing. Find her online at http://tamarackjourneyproductions.com/.

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You’ve heard her name given to a character in two Matrix movies, one Stephen King book, numerous video games, read about her in Greek mythology, and seen her name on the side of the logging tug in the longest running Canadian TV series, The Beachcombers. Persephone. In Greek mythology Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She was abducted by Hades, the king of the underworld, leaving Demeter so distraught she refused to let anything grow on Earth until Hades agreed to let Persephone spend half the year above ground. In My Ex From Hell, YA author Tellulah Darling has taken this familiar myth and given it a red hot chili pepper update. As the author herself writes: “It’s a Greek mythology smackdown as love meets comedy with a whole lot of sass in Book One of this teen romance series. Compared to Kai and Sophie, Romeo and Juliet had it easy.”

In My Ex From Hell (Book One in the Blooming Goddess Trilogy), sixteen-year-old Sophie Bloom’s life is a daily mix of standard teen drama constantly being stirred up by the fact she keeps saying and doing what she shouldn’t at her boarding school. But a kiss from bad boy Kai at the Halloween dance changes everything and awakens Sophie’s true identity, that of Persephone, Goddess of Spring. She suddenly finds herself the target of unwanted attention from Hades and Zeus because she is the only person who can save humanity from their Underworld versus Olympus battle for world domination. There’s also the frustrating fact that Sophie remembers someone tried to murder her when she was last Persephone, but who was it? Add into the story mix her need to figure out what she can and cannot do with her goddess powers — and just how can she outsmart the bad guys? Then there are those Kai kisses, but his dad is Hades. Complications just keep piling up.

My Ex From Hell has it all: smart writing, secrets hidden and revealed, fight scenes, comedy, and good old-fashioned romance. Although this book was written for a YA audience, this novel and its two follow-ups are rich in action and kick-ass repartee that will appeal to adults, too. The author’s film and television screenwriting background is evident in the snappy dialogue that zaps back and forth between friends and enemies. If you and I had Sophie in our pack in high school, there wouldn’t have been a dull moment in our days. The second and third books in the series, My Date From Hell and My Life from Hell are also available. As Tellulah Darling writes on her website, “Sassy girls. Swoony boys. What could go wrong?” In Darling’s books, plenty!

See more about Darling’s work at her website here.

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To see more kinds of reviews like the ones in this series, check out these blogs by Melanie Page and Lynn Kanter. And of course go to the Sappho’s Torque Books page here to see other reviews by me and by other contributors to the Women Writers Wednesday series.

The Women Writers Wednesday series seeks to highlight the contributions of women in literature by featuring excellent literature written by women authors via reviews/responses written by other women authors. If you’d like to be a contributor, wonderful! Leave a comment below or send me an email, tweet, or Facebook message with your idea.