Dead Beautiful

What if the man you love is the God of the Dead?That's the problem facing Persephone. Her mother, Demeter, is a Level-1 goddess who wants Persephone to marry Darryl, demi-god of home repairs, and stay close to home. Her father, Zeus, the top god on Mount Olympus, is a bit grumpy these days, fed-up with all the demands being made on him. And Hades, well, now that she's getting to know him, Hades isn't what Persephone expected at all — he's handsome, smart, sensitive and witty — in a word, hot.Beautiful, intelligent and strong-willed, Persephone's in line to be a Level-1 goddess herself someday. The problem is ... she's dissatisfied and restless.This new take on the classic myth is a smart, sexy, fast-moving read. Dead Beautiful explores the many faces of love, explains why there are four seasons, and reveals what really happens after death.In the tradition of Marie Phillips's Gods Behaving Badly, Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, and Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy, Dugan takes a classic tale and makes it new. Dead Beautiful is a story for anyone who wants to know what life on Olympus with the immortal gods is like, for anyone who has fallen in love, and for anyone who wonders what happens after death.Diane Schoemperlen, author of At A Loss for Words and Our Lady of the Lost and Found, says Dead Beautiful is "a cheeky and thought-provoking romp through the Pantheon, the Underworld, and that peculiar little place called Earth that lies somewhere in between." Dead Beautiful is a contemporary retelling of the classic Greek myth of Persephone. This was the myth the Greeks used to explain how we came to have the change of seasons. In the traditional version of the myth, Persephone the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of agriculture and fertility, and Zeus, the top god on Olympus is abducted one day by Hades, God of the Underworld (which is also called Hades). Demeter refuses to do her job until her daughter is returned to her, and the earth is plunged into the first no crops grow, cold settles on the earth. It turns out that while in Hades, Persephone has eaten six pomegranate seeds. As a result, for six months of the year, she must live with Hades; this is when it is fall and winter on earth. For six months she lives with her mother then we have spring and summer. Dead Beautiful asks, what if Persephone, like many adolescent girls, didnt tell her mother the whole truth? What if Hades didnt abduct her? What if she made the decision to go with him? (She is, after all, 18 millennia old.) The result is a novel that examines the complex dynamics between mothers and daughters, and explores the challenges faced by young women as they move from childhood into adulthood and independence. It is smart, fast-paced, funny and profound; a book that will appeal to women young and old, to mothers and daughters.