Sisterhood and Magic: A Review of Persephone’s Curse

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About The Book 📚

Title: Persephone’s Curse

Author: Katrina Leno

Publication Date: December 2, 2025

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy (Magical Realism), Retelling

Pages: 336

Setting: Manhattan

Click Here for Content Warnings (may contain spoilers)

Three Words That Describe This Book: witchy, emotional, mysterious

About The Author

“Katrina Leno was born on the East Coast and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels for young adults: Sometime in Summer, Horrid, You Must Not Miss, Summer of Salt, Everything All at Once, The Lost & Found, and The Half Life of Molly Pierce. Her eighth novel (and first middle grade) is The Umbrella Maker’s Son. She thinks you are just lovely.”
https://www.katrinaleno.com/

My Review

› The cover for Persephone’s Curse has a pomegranate surrounded by flowers. In Greek mythology, Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. While picking flowers, she was abducted by Hades and forced to marry him. He had tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds so she would have to spend 4 months of every year in the underworld. Persephone travels between the underworld and our world, and is the Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld.

› After loving Summer of Salt and Sometime in Summer, I was very excited to receive a Netgalley advance copy of Katrina Leno’s new book, Persophone’s Curse, which is set to be released on December 2, 2025. I don’t usually read young adult novels anymore, but I want to read everything by Katrina Leno. Her writing is beautiful.

› In the acknowledgements, Katrina Leno says, “The very first sentence of this book was written on May 15, 2020. I don’t think I need to say too much about what was happening around this date, except that I needed a big escape, and Persephone’s Curse gave that to me.”

› First Line: “My mother has only seen the ghost once, and that was fourteen years ago.”

› There are four Farthing sisters born two years apart: Bernadette, Evelyn, Winnie, and Clara. Their Aunt Bea always told them that they are the great x6 grandchildren of Persephone. They live in an old house filled with character and a ghost named Henry. He played alongside the sisters as they grew up, and one of them fell in love with him.

“Girl, girl, girl, girl, ghost. As it had always been, since we were little, since we were born.”

“You’re like that painting. The four of you. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.”

› Persephone’s Curse is told from Winnie’s perspective. She’s a sixteen-year-old who is observant and loves her sisters more than anything. Bernadette is 20, Evelyn is 18, and Clara is 14. We learn that one of them is in love with Henry, the seventeen-year-old ghost. After he is exiled, the sister travels to the underworld to get him back. This novel doesn’t have a complicated plot. This is a beautifully written, character-driven story, and I loved every page. The atmosphere, the description and world-building, the dialogue, the intrigue. 10s across the board. I don’t usually tell you my star rating anymore on my blog posts, but this was a definite 5-star read for me. Perfection.

Quotes That Stuck With Me

“For Demeter, saying goodbye to her daughter each year caused the harvests to die, the plants to go dormant, the earth to grow cold. Whenever you feel the sharp, biting breeze of a winter’s day, know that this is Demeter, yearning for Persephone, and in her deep, deep sorrow, keeping everything cold until spring.”

“But what is myth, anyway, if not stories? And what are stories if not recounts of our history? And no matter how embellished, no matter how many times a story is told and retold, there is always truth there.”

APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: character-driven
Pace: medium
Tone: emotional, bittersweet, feel-good, moody, magical, whimsical, mysterious
Humour: offbeat
Writing Style: conversational, descriptive, engaging
Character: authentic, awkward, brooding, complex, flawed, likeable, quirky, relatable, strong female, well-developed
Disability representation: mental illness
LGBTQIA+ Representation: gay, queer

Read Alikes:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater

› Final Thoughts
• Persephone’s Curse is an emotional and meaningful story about sisterhood, family, friends, and love. It’s about being there for each other in good times and in bad. It’s about betrayal and forgiveness. I can’t wait to read it again. Such a beautiful book. Highly, highly recommend.