A Touch of Darkness
A Touch of Darkness is the first novel in Scarlett St. Clair's bestselling Hades and Persephone retelling, originally self-published in 2019 and acquired and re-released by Bloom Books in 2021 after a sustained TikTok-driven viral run. Set in an alternate present called New Greece, where the Olympian gods walk openly among mortals and run megacorporations and nightclubs, the book reimagines the Persephone myth as a contemporary dark-romance enemies-to-lovers arc. Persephone Rosi is a journalism graduate at New Athens University who has been kept ignorant of her own divinity by her overprotective mother Demeter and has resolved to live among mortals as a normal young writer. On her first assigned investigative story she walks into Nevernight, the underground Underworld nightclub run by Hades, with the intent of exposing him as a predatory god. He recognizes her. They strike a wager he is sure she cannot win, and she finds herself contractually bound to him until she does.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about A Touch of Darkness
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A journalism student in a modern-day pantheon makes a careless bet with the cold king of the Underworld and finds the terms binding her closer to him than she ever planned. First in a series.
Yes. A Touch of Darkness contains multiple explicit sex scenes and is part of the Hades and Persephone romantasy wave. Most readers rate it 4 to 5 out of 5 on the spice scale.
Yes. A Touch of Darkness contains multiple explicit sex scenes and is part of the Hades and Persephone romantasy wave. Most readers rate it 4 to 5 out of 5 on the spice scale.
Scarlett St. Clair has published the Hades x Persephone Saga, which includes A Touch of Darkness, A Touch of Ruin, A Touch of Malice, and A Touch of Chaos. There is also a connected Hades Saga that retells events from Hades's perspective.
A Touch of Darkness was written by Scarlett St. Clair, published in 2021 by Sourcebooks, Incorporated.
A Touch of Darkness is 379 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Touch of Darkness takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
A Touch of Darkness is a standalone novel by Scarlett St. Clair, not part of a series.
A Touch of Darkness is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.