What do you think?
Rate this book
A Curse of Honor
The truth lies with only those willing to seek it.
Elena, daughter of the God of War, has known nothing but training to lead the Gods’ armies all of her life. Determined to let nothing get in the way of that goal, she is selected to complete a task for The Twelve, or the Olympians as the mortals call them. Her task? Retrieve Persephone from the Underworld.
Ready to watch the Underworld burn, she arrives in Hades’ Court, immediately thrown in with The Children of the Night—a dangerous group of siblings said to take pride in killing mortals, especially their leader, Thanatos.
Forced to work together over her stay, Thanatos finds himself unable to deny there is something that draws him to Elena, and Elena to him. But he will stop at nothing to protect his family and to ensure Elena fails the task that brought her to the Underworld.
Forced to decide between duty and desire, the state of the Underworld hangs in the balance. The cost of this choice could be deadly.
Elena, daughter of the God of War, has known nothing but training to lead the Gods’ armies all of her life. Determined to let nothing get in the way of that goal, she is selected to complete a task for The Twelve, or the Olympians as the mortals call them. Her task? Retrieve Persephone from the Underworld.
Ready to watch the Underworld burn, she arrives in Hades’ Court, immediately thrown in with The Children of the Night—a dangerous group of siblings said to take pride in killing mortals, especially their leader, Thanatos.
Forced to work together over her stay, Thanatos finds himself unable to deny there is something that draws him to Elena, and Elena to him. But he will stop at nothing to protect his family and to ensure Elena fails the task that brought her to the Underworld.
Forced to decide between duty and desire, the state of the Underworld hangs in the balance. The cost of this choice could be deadly.
- GenresFantasy
285 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 10, 2024
17 people are currently reading
216 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 21, 2025
✨📚 Book Review
A Curse of Honor By Delaney Nicole
5⭐️2🌶️
🗡️ I love Greek mythology so I devoured this one! I really loved this love story between Elena and Thanatos. Elena is a strong character with lots of growth and self discovery. She's faced with difficult choices and tasks that leads her to decide between duty and following her heart. The romance Elena and Thanatos was perfect. I was also entertained by their banter. I enjoyed the world building and attention to detail. I definitely want to read more by this author.
🗡️Favorite book quotes:
"I made a vow to myself that one day, I would show them just how strong and lethal a woman can be." ~Elena
"Something changed in me when you arrived. Everything changed. My world is no longer a planet. My world is a person. It is you. " ~Thanatos
💜Tropes:
✧Enemies to lovers
✧Slowish burn romance
✧Greek Mythology
✧Found family
✧Self discovery
#Acurseofhonor
A Curse of Honor By Delaney Nicole
5⭐️2🌶️
🗡️ I love Greek mythology so I devoured this one! I really loved this love story between Elena and Thanatos. Elena is a strong character with lots of growth and self discovery. She's faced with difficult choices and tasks that leads her to decide between duty and following her heart. The romance Elena and Thanatos was perfect. I was also entertained by their banter. I enjoyed the world building and attention to detail. I definitely want to read more by this author.
🗡️Favorite book quotes:
"I made a vow to myself that one day, I would show them just how strong and lethal a woman can be." ~Elena
"Something changed in me when you arrived. Everything changed. My world is no longer a planet. My world is a person. It is you. " ~Thanatos
💜Tropes:
✧Enemies to lovers
✧Slowish burn romance
✧Greek Mythology
✧Found family
✧Self discovery
#Acurseofhonor
March 25, 2025
I love a good Greek mythology retelling. Hades and Persephone are my favorite, but Elena and Thanatos? Amazing! This duo had such fantastic banter a rivals to maybe friends to lovers story that I fell in love with at the very beginning.
I LOVED Elena’s character growth - questioning things she was taught with what she was seeing. Thanatos was harsh and compassionate and protective and snarky. Move over Hades, ya girl might just be a bigger fan of Thanatos after this one!
I LOVED Elena’s character growth - questioning things she was taught with what she was seeing. Thanatos was harsh and compassionate and protective and snarky. Move over Hades, ya girl might just be a bigger fan of Thanatos after this one!
March 8, 2025
When I first started this book I could not decide if I liked it. But I continued reading. By the time the twists and turns started happening I was hooked. Elena is like any young girl, she is unsure of her worth and is willing to do.wjatever to prove she is the.one.that deserves the job of helping lead the armies. Insert a trip to the underworld and Thantos. This telling of the God's and the journey to find love turned out to be pretty amazing.
January 2, 2025
my childhood friend wrote this book, and wow i couldn't be more proud!!! this book was sooo good. it has everything you want in a book: romance, yearning, enemies to lovers, found family. i have never read a greek mythology book before, but this book now has me wanting to read more!!! this story is about so much more than what's on the surface, and i can't wait to read the rest of the future books. pls everyone go read and rate this book for my dear friend 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
Read
March 27, 2025While this book had an intriguing premise with plenty of potential, it ultimately fell short.
TLDR: I DNFed at 50% I wanted to like it but it felt the author relied on tropes too much. The characters felt like a bullet point list of traits to fill in the tropes. Some things didn’t make sense because things were fully explained, fleshed out or explored. Also the plot stopped moving in favor of tropes.
One of my biggest issues was with the characters. Elena is presented as snarky, cute, and short-tempered, with a clear drive to be the best and chase her dreams. While on paper, these traits sound engaging, they lacked depth. Elena’s personality felt one-dimensional. The same can be said for the rest of the characters—while they have defining traits, they never feel fully fleshed out or dynamic.
The world-building left much to be desired. The setting is described as Greece (Earth) for the humans, and Olympia and the Underworld for the gods, but there’s very little exploration of why the Underworld is as dangerous as it’s made out to be. “The Twelve” gods are mentioned, but their hierarchy and importance are mostly inferred rather than explored. And the Children of the Night? We’re told they’re the bad guys, reaper of innocent souls, but beyond that??
The relationship dynamics, particularly with Thanatos, were another sticking point for me. Elena’s hatred of him is presented as a major plot point, apparently since he took her mortal mother’s soul, I think at least. After a conversation with her father, the reasoning behind her animosity felt weak. They discussed mortals dying as a normal part of their life and the importance of the Underworld’s part in that. Plus, I could tell it was leading to the “misunderstood monster is a sweet brooding guy who wants to be loved”. I didn’t finish though, so maybe I’m wrong.
The writing also didn’t do the book any favors. The plot stops moving once we meet the Children of the Night (assumed found family trope) in favor of sexual tension and snarky banter. The author relied on these tropes to engage the reader over plot. There were several phrases and scenes that were repeated far too often—Elena frequently puts her hand over her head after exercise for better breathing, and certain characters are constantly pushing each other against walls in a menacing way. It became frustrating to read these and others over and over again.
I’m all for tropes and familiar patterns in stories, it wasn’t handles in a way that felt fresh. While the plot intrigued me, I ultimately had to put the book down, it it simply didn’t hit the mark for me.
TLDR: I DNFed at 50% I wanted to like it but it felt the author relied on tropes too much. The characters felt like a bullet point list of traits to fill in the tropes. Some things didn’t make sense because things were fully explained, fleshed out or explored. Also the plot stopped moving in favor of tropes.
One of my biggest issues was with the characters. Elena is presented as snarky, cute, and short-tempered, with a clear drive to be the best and chase her dreams. While on paper, these traits sound engaging, they lacked depth. Elena’s personality felt one-dimensional. The same can be said for the rest of the characters—while they have defining traits, they never feel fully fleshed out or dynamic.
The world-building left much to be desired. The setting is described as Greece (Earth) for the humans, and Olympia and the Underworld for the gods, but there’s very little exploration of why the Underworld is as dangerous as it’s made out to be. “The Twelve” gods are mentioned, but their hierarchy and importance are mostly inferred rather than explored. And the Children of the Night? We’re told they’re the bad guys, reaper of innocent souls, but beyond that??
The relationship dynamics, particularly with Thanatos, were another sticking point for me. Elena’s hatred of him is presented as a major plot point, apparently since he took her mortal mother’s soul, I think at least. After a conversation with her father, the reasoning behind her animosity felt weak. They discussed mortals dying as a normal part of their life and the importance of the Underworld’s part in that. Plus, I could tell it was leading to the “misunderstood monster is a sweet brooding guy who wants to be loved”. I didn’t finish though, so maybe I’m wrong.
The writing also didn’t do the book any favors. The plot stops moving once we meet the Children of the Night (assumed found family trope) in favor of sexual tension and snarky banter. The author relied on these tropes to engage the reader over plot. There were several phrases and scenes that were repeated far too often—Elena frequently puts her hand over her head after exercise for better breathing, and certain characters are constantly pushing each other against walls in a menacing way. It became frustrating to read these and others over and over again.
I’m all for tropes and familiar patterns in stories, it wasn’t handles in a way that felt fresh. While the plot intrigued me, I ultimately had to put the book down, it it simply didn’t hit the mark for me.
March 22, 2025
Elena is a demi-goddesses tasked with a difficult mission, retrieve these two things and Zeus will reward her with the one thing she wants most. But as she begins her mission, truth begins to unravel around her revealing not all is as she knew, and her mission just became a million times harder while she is torn between two worlds.
I read this book as part of The Crafty Bookstore’s book club and I loved it!!! This Greek mythology retelling gave a strong but vulnerable female character to follow, while also providing a story of her self-discovery. A surprise second point of view appears after while, that of her rival, and oh the swooning and yearning and banter between these two, I loved it!
I even broke out my annotating tabs because there were some lines I just could not pass over. The feelings of the characters was palpable, you felt like you were watching everything play out before you I got so sucked in.
There were some great little twists to the story that I didn’t see coming and some characters who I hope make it into book two. I love that this will be part of a series, and however it works out I am very excited to see where it will go and what will happen next!
I definitely recommend this book especially for fans of mythology retellings!
I read this book as part of The Crafty Bookstore’s book club and I loved it!!! This Greek mythology retelling gave a strong but vulnerable female character to follow, while also providing a story of her self-discovery. A surprise second point of view appears after while, that of her rival, and oh the swooning and yearning and banter between these two, I loved it!
I even broke out my annotating tabs because there were some lines I just could not pass over. The feelings of the characters was palpable, you felt like you were watching everything play out before you I got so sucked in.
There were some great little twists to the story that I didn’t see coming and some characters who I hope make it into book two. I love that this will be part of a series, and however it works out I am very excited to see where it will go and what will happen next!
I definitely recommend this book especially for fans of mythology retellings!
February 6, 2025
This was such an easy read!! Such a nice break up for the 700 pages I’ve been sucked into lately.
Enemies to lovers.
“I cannot go an hour without thinking of you. You haunt my sleep for gods sake. Do you think I want to be transfixed by your presence? Do you think I do not loathe myself for wanting every part of you that you will give me?”
“Everything changed. My world is no longer a planet. My world is a person. It is you.”
CALLAN. Was easy to fall in love with yet another man in a book.
My only complaint is that it went from slow to too fast.
Enemies to lovers.
“I cannot go an hour without thinking of you. You haunt my sleep for gods sake. Do you think I want to be transfixed by your presence? Do you think I do not loathe myself for wanting every part of you that you will give me?”
“Everything changed. My world is no longer a planet. My world is a person. It is you.”
CALLAN. Was easy to fall in love with yet another man in a book.
My only complaint is that it went from slow to too fast.
February 6, 2026
Well written, but some of the plot twists were too easy to see coming. Good writing and I liked the twist on the underworld- but a bit far fetched for my buy in, and Eliana’s … nah I don’t want to include any spoilers.
I would recommend the author, but not this particular piece of work.
Bottom Line : 3 stars for the work and writing quality that went into the story.
I would recommend the author, but not this particular piece of work.
Bottom Line : 3 stars for the work and writing quality that went into the story.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews