Goddess Of Light (Goddess Summoning #3) By: P.C Cast (Book Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Tired of dating egomaniacs, interior designer Pamela Gray has nearly given up. She wants to be treated like a goddess—preferably by a god. As she whispers her wish, she unwittingly invokes the goddess Artemis, who has some tricks up her celestial sleeve…Twins Artemis and Apollo have been sent to the kingdom of Las Vegas to test their mettle. Their first assignment: make Pamela’s wish come true. So Artemis volunteers her golden brother. After all, who better than the handsome God of Light to bring love to this lonely woman? It might be a first, but here in Sin City, where life is a gamble, both god and mortal are about to bet on a high-stakes game of love..

For the third installment of the series, it focuses on Apollo and his journey in falling in love with a human. It's nice that for this book we have recurring characters from the previous one, especially, Apollo since he was known as being a lover of the flesh, never to have fallen in love...at all. 

Being a fan of Greek Mythology, I have had a certain idea of what some of these gods, and goddesses would be like. It's always interesting seeing and reading them from someone else's perspective. I did think that Apollo would be one of those gods that is more interested in a hedonistic lifestyle instead of being a more serious and self-controlled god. The story of Apollo and Cassandra is thousands of years old and because of her rejection of him, he cursed her so that no one would believe her true predictions that she would prophesize. 

Apollo seeing how Hades and Lina (from the previous book) fell in love and forever are together made him want the same thing. I will be candid with you all. I don't believe that Apollo fell in love with Pamela. I feel like he wanted to fall in love so badly because someone who he even made fun of such as Hades fell in love and found his soulmate before he did. It does appear that he fell in love with the idea of unconditional love and if it were any other woman the outcome would have been the same. It seemed so rushed in Apollo trying to romanticize and essentially, posses her love. 

I've had many different ideas of who and how Artemis presented herself but the way Cast did it was first off; extremely surprising and secondly; definitely different than any other way I've read her being written before. I was so surprised that this Artemis was a self-indulgent, over-important, rude and obnoxious goddess. Had no care for humans and only cared about herself. For the goddess of the Moon and Hunt, those were the last qualities I expected to find...but I guess everyone needs a redeeming arc of some kind. 

I loved Pamela's character. She's a hard working, independent woman who isn't afraid to stand up for herself. She wasn't always like that because in her previous relationship and only marriage she was with a over-bearing and controlling man. Post divorce and she is apprehensive of men and dating in general.  One thing she enjoyed the most being on her own is waking up early and enjoying the sun...this is key for later. Of course, did she share a similar moment other than going on a hike with Apollo? Not really, most of their encounters happened during the middle of the day and evenings. 

Pamela, unfortunately, another mortal instrument used by the gods dies suddenly in a car wreck and Apollo grieve-stricken goes to his 'friends' Hades and Lina...Mind you he only paid attention to Lina because she rejected him when she possessed Persephone's body. Another blow to his ego. Pamela eventually gets used to the idea of being dead and finding peace when Apollo has this brilliant idea that they drink from the river Lethe so that they may begin a new cycle on Earth. Poor Pamela just goes along with it not knowing any better. Her life was stolen from her by the interference of gods and yet again she has to start anew because of another man. 

I don't like the ending. We don't have any closure on Pamela's life and we immediately jump into her new one. The only thing that even indicates that her soul reincarnated was the fact that she loves waking up early...like really? Couldn't find another way to corelate the two lives? It's so obvious the only reason why Apollo would agree to this was because no other god or goddess has ever done something like that and of course he had to pawn off his duties to his sister. 

Rating:

This is getting 3 stars on 5! Clearly, it's not my favourite out of the series and such a contrast to the previous book that show cased Hades, Persephone and Demeter. While I am happy that this book branched out and starred different gods, I am disappointed by the relationship between Pamela and Apollo. When you compare Hades and Lina it's literally night and day. And night (Hades and Lina) is clearly kicking butt in the romance department. The way that couple was written was so much better in comparison to Pamela and Apollo. However, it was still an enjoyable book (in certain areas). I do hope that the next pairing is better written than this one.