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I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the LORE Paperback by Alexandra Bracken Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: LORE

Author: Alexandra Bracken

Paperback Pub. Date: January 3, 2023

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 480

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/LOREPaperback

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds comes a sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love, and redemption.

Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals. They are hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.

Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory after her family was murdered by a rival line. For years she's pushed away any thought of revenge against the man—now a god—responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek her out: Castor, a childhood friend Lore believed to be dead, and Athena, one of the last of the original gods, now gravely wounded.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and a way to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore's decision to rejoin the hunt, binding her fate to Athena's, will come at a deadly cost—and it may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

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Excerpt:

LIVING LINES  

THE HOUSE OF KADMOS — The Kadmides Bearers of the mark of the serpent  Exalted by Wrath, Ares reborn 

THE HOUSE OF ODYSSEUS — The Odysseides Bearers of the mark of the Trojan horse Exalted by Heartkeeper, Aphrodite reborn 

THE HOUSE OF THESEUS — The Theseides Bearers of the mark of the Minotaur 

THE HOUSE OF ACHILLES — The Achillides  Bearers of the mark of the warrior  

THE HOUSE OF PERSEUS — The Perseides Bearers of the mark of the Gorgon Exalted by Tidebringer, Poseidon reborn

DEAD LINES 

THE HOUSE OF MELEAGER — The Meleagrides  Bearers of the mark of the Calydonian boar 

THE HOUSE OF BELLEROPHON — The Bellerophonides  Bearers of the mark of Pegasus 

THE HOUSE OF JASON — The Jasonides Bearers of the mark of the ram 

THE HOUSE OF HERAKLES — The Heraklides  Bearers of the mark of the Nemean lion  Exalted by the Reveler, Dionysus reborn

The lord of sky stood bright against the fall of twilight and spoke: Hear me, blooded heirs of those proud men who ventured into the darkness to slay those monsters and kings past. I call you to a final agon to 

win your own lasting glory. Nine gods have betrayed me and now demand cruel revenge. For seven days at the turn of seven 

years will they walk as mortal so you men, and all your heirs henceforth, may break your own fated path and turn your thread of life to immortal gold. Reveal your strength and skills and I will reward you with the mantle  

and the deathless power of the god whose blood stains your bold blade. For this chance I ask much. Gather at the navel of the known world and begin your hunt when the day is born. So it shall be until that final day when one remains who is remade whole. 

Zeus at Olympia,  translated by Kreon of the Odysseides

He woke to the feeling of rough ground beneath him and the stench of mortal blood. His body was slower to recover than his mind. Unwelcome sensations burned  through him as his skin tightened like newly fired clay. 

The dew of the grass seeped into the back of his thin blue robe, and he felt the  dirt splattered on his bare legs and feet. A humiliating shiver passed through him,  sweeping from scalp to heel. For the first time in seven years, he caught a chill. 

The mortal blood that flowed through him was like sludge compared to the  liquid sunlight of the ichor that had burned away all traces of his mortality and  released him back into the world. For seven years, he had swept through lands near  and far, stoked the vicious hearts of killers, nurtured the embers of conflicts into  flames. He had been rage itself. 

To feel the boundaries of a body again . . . to be poured back into this weak  vessel . . . it was torment enough to make him pity the old gods. They had lived  this atrocity two hundred and twelve times over. 

He would not. This would be his final taste of mortality. 

His senses were dulled, but he recognized the city and its grand park. The  smell of mowed grass mingling with faint sewage. The sound of traffic in the near  distance. The electric, restless feel of its veins deep beneath the street. 

The corners of his mouth stretched up awkwardly, forced to remember how  to smile. It had been his city once, in his mortal life; the streets had offered him  riches, and the greedy had sold him pieces of power. Manhattan had once knelt  before him, and would again.

He rolled, shifting into a crouch. When he was certain of his limbs, he rose  slowly to his full height. 

Dark blood flowed in rivers around him. A young girl, her mask ripped from  her face, stared at him with unseeing eyes from the edge of the crater. A knife was  still buried in her throat. A man’s head, severed from his body, bore the mask of a  horse. A dagger was balanced in a limp hand that was missing fingers. 

There was a faint shuffle of footsteps to his right. He reached for a sword that  was no longer at his side. Three figures stepped out from beneath the shadow of  the nearby trees. They crossed the paved trail between them, their faces hidden by  bronze masks that each bore the visage of a serpent. 

His mortal bloodline. The House of Kadmos. They had come to collect him,  their new god. 

He stretched his neck until it cracked, watching their approach. The hunt ers were awed, and it pleased him. His predecessor, the last new Ares, had been  unworthy to hold the mantle of the god of war. It had been an unspeakable pleasure  to kill him and claim his birthright seven years ago. 

The tallest of the three hunters stepped forward. Belen. The new god watched,  amused, as the young man plucked the arrows from the bodies in a ruthless harvest. A shame that his only surviving offspring had been born a bastard. He could  not be the heir of Aristos Kadmou, the mortal the new god had once been. Still,  his lips curved, and he welcomed the glow of pride at the sight of the young man. Belen lifted his mask and lowered his gaze respectfully. The god reached up,  feeling along the lines of his face. The boy’s was so much like his own now. The  scarred husk of decades had been peeled away from the god when he had ascended,  leaving him young again. In his prime, forever. 

“Most honored of us all,” Belen said, kneeling. He offered the new god a rolled  bundle from the bag at his hip—a crimson silk tunic to replace the hideous sky-blue  one he wore now. “We welcome you and offer the blood of your enemies in tribute  to your name, as a sign of our undying loyalty. We are here to protect you with  our lives until the time comes for you to be reborn again in power.” 

The words were gravel in the new god’s throat. “Beyond that.” “Yes, my lord,” Belen said.

More hunters approached from behind Belen, all cloaked in a hunter’s black.  They dragged a figure also wearing a tunic of sky blue. 

“Bring him to me,” he told Belen. 

Two black SUVs, their lights off, approached from the nearby street and drove  over the grass to reach them. The Kadmides then began their work. They unrolled  tarps on Central Park’s grass and rolled the dead hunters onto them. They over turned the soil. Replaced the bloodied grass. Loaded the brutalized carcasses into  the trunk of yet another SUV pulling up behind them. 

This same ritual, he knew, was being performed by the other bloodlines across  the park. 

The captive lashed out again as he was drawn forward, battering the nearest  hunters with his skull like a rabid animal. They had cut the tendons of his ankles  to prevent him from using his heightened speed to escape. Good. 

The hunters forced him to his knees. The new god reached down to rip the  hood off his head. 

Gold eyes burned as they glared up at him, the sparks of power there swirling  with fury. Blood poured from a wound at his forehead, staining his once-luminous  skin and tunic. 

“Your last useful power has been taken from you,” the new god said. He  clutched a fistful of the old god’s curling brown hair and wrenched his head back,  forcing his gaze up. 

“I know what you desire, Godkiller,” the old god said in the ancient tongue.  “And you will never find it.” 

He’d only needed to know that it hadn’t been destroyed. The new god’s rage  was its own kind of euphoria. He brought the razor-sharp edge of his blade to the  old god’s soft mortal flesh. 

The new god smiled. 

“Trickster. Messenger. Traveler. Thief,” the new god said. Then he slammed the  blade through the ridged bones of the prisoner’s spine. “Nothing.” Blood burst from the wound. The new god drank deep the sight of the old god’s  fear—that pain, that disbelief—as his power faded. A shame the new god could  not add it to his own.

“It’s the way of things, is it not?” the new god said. He leaned down, watching  as the last flare of life left the old god’s eyes. “The way of your father, and his father  before him. The old gods must die to allow the new to rise.” 

The park was silent around them, save for the wet sounds of the new god’s  sawing blade, and the invigorating crack as he finally separated the head from its  body. The new god thrust the head of Hermes high enough for his followers to see. 

The hunters hissed in pleasure, banging their fists against their chests. The new  god took one final look at it before tossing the head onto the nearest tarp with the  other remains. Come morning, there would be no sign of the eight gods who had  appeared like lightning within the boundaries of Central Park, or those hunters who  had fallen in their attempts to kill them. 

The city thrummed around him, aching with barely constrained chaos. It sang  to him a song of coming terror. He understood that longing—to be unleashed. “I am Wrath.” The new god knelt, dipping his fingers into the bloody mud. “I  am your master.” He dragged them down over his cheeks. “I am your glory.” The hunters around him lifted their masks to do the same, smearing the damp  earth across their eager faces. 

A new age was in reach, waiting to be seized by one strong enough to dare. “Now,” the new god said, “we begin.”

Review:

Lore by Alexandra Bracken is such an amazing book and was everything I hoped for. I was really impressed with this one. I wasn't sure what I would be reading into in this book but I was drawn in right away. Every seven years the Agon begins. (The Agon is like a Hunger Games style event that happens with the gods and goddesses and their families.) Agon came about because Zeus created this hunt as a punishment to the gods. This Hunt goes on for seven days as the ancient bloodline families hunt each other down hoping to gain the new title of god or goddess. This year something is wrong. The Agon is in New York City and it is beginning with the "new" Ames permanently killing other gods. Next thing Lore knows Athena is badly injured and on her doorstep.

Bracken did such a good job with laying this story out. I really enjoyed the plot line and all the characters. Lore is absolutely amazing. As a reader I could really tell how much work Bracken put into this story. There was an entire history of the games and all of the rules. I love that we got all the information as we were reading the story and not with big information dumps. I found Lore to be such a fun character. She has a horrifically sad back story being the last person of her bloodline but she is such a warrior. With everything that Lore went through she was such an impressive character. To top everything off, we even have a bit of a friends to lovers romance sub plot going on as well. Definitely check Lore out. I totally wish there was more because I loved this book so much. Lore is a standalone. If you like Greek mythology this is definitely a great book to check out.