The Ballad of Ashes and SpringA Hades and Persephone Retelling

As her mother’s prodigy, Dr. Persephone Kore is kidnapped by her own guards and taken to a hidden facility in the Underground — where humanity labors to craft a bunker capable of enduring an apocalypse. And when she meets Hades, their attraction has her treading the line between duty and desire…

For readers who crave:

• Hades & Persephone
• Morally gray gods
• Enemies to lovers
• Dark romantasy
• Myth retellings

The Ballad of Ashes and Spring is a dark romantasy tale of resilience, betrayal, intrigue, and forbidden attraction. It reimagines the myth of Hades and Persephone, asking the reader if Hades stole Demeter’s bright flower or if she descended to seek solitude and her lover’s touch. It is hope against the ruins of war and a single spark of defiance can alter the fate of an entire world.

Dr. Persephone Kore is brilliant, stubborn, and utterly devoted to her work. As her mother Demeter’s caged prodigy, she has to be. Her bioengineering research could feed nations or be weaponized by them. Tension flares to war, shattering everything she knows. Persephone is kidnapped by her own guards and thrust into a hidden facility where secrets lurk under the strict rules, power is fragile, and every choice carries the weight of life and death.

The vast Underground is built to endure an apocalypse, but it comes at a cost: strict rules over every aspect of life, inflexible classes, and bargains she can’t begin to understand. Persephone’s arrival disrupts the order, stirring rivalries, igniting passions, and altering the delicate balance of power and control.

The betrayal from her guards blooms into more as her crush turns out to be more than he seems. Here, at the end of the world, balancing between duty and desire, Persephone must determine how to create her own life, her own freedom, and her happiness. Is she a pawn in someone else’s game, or a queen in her own right?