Abigail Owen’s The Things Gods Break is the second installment in The Crucible trilogy, picking up immediately after the events of its predecessor, The Games Gods Play (2024). The first novel introduces the protagonist, Lyra Keres, a mortal woman cursed by Zeus to be unlovable. She is forced to compete as Hades’s champion in the Crucible, a series of 12 deadly trials to establish the King of the Gods. Against all odds, Lyra emerges victorious, winning godhood, the heart of Hades, and the title of Queen of the Underworld.

The grand prize of the Crucible games is Pandora’s Box, intended to be the key to freeing the goddess Persephone from her imprisonment in Tartarus. However, in the final moments of The Games Gods Play, the box’s opening goes awry. Instead of releasing Persephone, it drags Lyra into Tartarus, pulling her friend, Boone, in with her. This catastrophic event occurs just as Lyra and Hades have secured their future together, instantly separating them and establishing the primary conflict of the sequel. The narrative of The Things Gods Break is therefore driven by the urgent need to rescue Lyra from a prison no god has ever escaped, transforming a potential “happily ever after” into a high-stakes test of a newly forged love against cosmic imprisonment.

The Crucible trilogy participates in a popular literary trend known as revisionist mythology, in which authors reinterpret classical myths to explore new perspectives and challenge traditional narratives. This movement includes contemporary works like Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018) and Stephen Fry’s Mythos (2017), which humanize figures depicted as monstrous or minor in ancient texts.

Owen’s series is set in the aftermath of the Titanomachy, the mythical battle in which the original Greek gods, the Titans, were eventually vanquished by the younger Olympian gods, led by Zeus. In classical Greek mythology, particularly in sources like Hesiod’s Theogony, the Titans are portrayed as tyrannical antagonists. Their king, Cronos, is infamous for devouring his children to subvert a prophecy that his offspring would one day overthrow him. Owen’s novel dramatically revises this tradition by reframing the Titanomachy. In The Things God Breaks, Lyra realizes that Olympian gods such as Hades were tricked into fighting their parents through magical illusions known as glamours. For instance, the myth of Cronos eating his own children is the result of a glamour. In this context, the Titans are portrayed as parents who were wrongly imprisoned.

The novel also builds on events in The Games Gods Play, continuing its exploration of the fated romance between Lyra and Hades, the King of the Underworld. Owen subverts traditional portrayals of Hades as a pitiless ruler through nuanced characterization. While his destructive rampage at the end of The Things Gods Break illustrates his fearsome nature, Hades also displays sensitivity. Lyra’s encounter with Hades as a young man underscores his fear of unintentionally hurting loved ones, presenting his deathly powers as a curse. Furthermore, his violent actions toward the novel’s end are driven by his profound love for Lyra and a desperation to save her.

The novel’s revisionism also extends to the setting. While Homer’s Iliad describes Tartarus as a pit “as far beneath the house of Hades as from earth the sky lies” (xiii), Owen reimagines the dungeon of the Underworld as a “Labyrinth,” featuring a series of psychological challenges called “Locks.” In this way, the author transforms Tartarus from a physical pit of damnation into a landscape of interior struggle. By challenging the established mythological canon, Owen creates a morally complex world that compels readers to question received stories about heroism and villainy.