The Keys of Persephone
In Kate Gray Glass’s fantasy novel The Keys of Persephone, a ghost without memories and a witch without powers form an alliance to stop a series of mysterious murders.
Lane is a ghost tasked with capturing unruly denizens of the afterlife. Told that it is normal for ghosts to not remember their human lives, Lane follows orders without question. But when one of her friends is tortured and killed in front of her, Lane travels to the human world in search of answers.
Lane meets Shepherd, a black sheep of her witch family due to her lack of magical powers. Shepherd is looking for her missing sister. The women form an alliance despite the fabled enmity between witches and ghosts. The more Lane and Shepherd dig, however, the more puzzles emerge. Other witches have gone missing, and a mysterious bone key with human teeth emerges at the site of a ghostly murder that prompts Lane to dig further. A cursed witch whom Shepherd knows confirms that this is one of the rumored Keys of Persephone, gruesome in origin and fearsome in power.
Murdered ghosts reborn as dangerous monsters dog the women’s steps, forcing them to take larger risks in search of answers. Echoes of the myths of Persephone, Hades, Orpheus, and Eurydice resonate throughout the novel, with Lane and Shepherd denying the tentative feelings growing between them as impossible because one is dead and the other is alive. However, the story’s mythic structure leads to some details being glossed over, such as why the academy for ghosts that Lane attends only has twenty students at a time, given the number of ghosts that exist. The role that demons play in the afterlife is also hazy.
A queer coming-of-age story, The Keys of Persephone is an exciting fantasy novel in which secrets abound and friendships are sustaining.
Reviewed by
Jeana Jorgensen
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
