Rating: 3 Stars

Format: E-book (ARC - pub Jan 21, 2025)

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Myths and Retellings

TWs:

Murder, violence, gore, miscarriage (graphic, on page), sexual assault, sexual violence, rape, cannibalism

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review! 

Those Fatal Flowers is a fascinating take on a mythical retelling, blending Greco-Roman inspiration with colonial historical fiction. It follows Thelia, who is one of three sirens, former handmaidens to Proserpina (Perseophone). After she is taken by Dis (Hades) to the underworld, the sirens are exiled to an island called Scopuli as punishment for failing to protect Proserpina from Dis’s attack. From there we follow the three cursed sisters’ struggle for survival and efforts to escape their exile. 

One of this book’s strongest elements is the writing. I enjoyed the alternating timelines and felt like Ives did a good job of giving us just enough information to keep things moving without bogging down the pacing. I was definitely entertained throughout the entire book and I was invested in Thelia’s arc enough to want to know what she was up to and how she would grow. Thelia had some major character flaws at the beginning of this book and it was satisfying to see her grow and change some of her problematic beliefs. I liked many of the side characters, but I do wish we got more development of Thelia’s sisters. They didn’t feel as fleshed out as some of the other members of the cast. 

And as a warning, this book is pretty brutal. I think some of the violence was effective and some of it took up a bit too much space. There are graphic descriptions of the killing, mutilating, and eating of the men that Thelia and her sisters lure to their island through their magic song.  I appreciated the underlying rage that the women in this book felt and I understand the catharsis of some of the violence against very bad and corrupt characters, but it didn’t always land. 

As others have mentioned, an element that didn’t really work for me was the discussions, or lack thereof, of colonization. We don’t see a single Native person on-page. There are references to Indigenous populations in Virginia, but I didn’t like how the atrocities committed against those Indigenous groups by the community Thelia found herself in were sort of swept under the rug by the narrative. Those atrocities are mentioned, and there are hints that the narrative is self-aware enough to paint them as bad because they are denounced on-page, but I don’t think that Ives explored that enough, especially when so much of the book discusses morality, violence, and innocence. If you’re going to do a colonial setting in historical fiction, you should flesh out all the implications of a character like Thelia stumbling into that colonial setting. The absence of Indigenous characters was very weird throughout. 

Overall, I thought this book was entertaining and easy to read even with its flaws and thematic missteps. I think enjoyers of myths and retellings will find a lot to like here.