A Touch of Ruin is the second book in the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Hades x Persephone series by Scarlett St. Clair, who is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation. In a modern New Athens where the Olympian gods have the status of wealthy celebrities, Persephone, a young woman still learning the extent of her power as the Goddess of Spring, navigates her career as a journalist, her difficult relationship with her mother, the heartbreaks of her friends, and her passionate relationship with the God of the Underworld, Hades.

While the novel draws on typical new adult themes such as coming of age, managing relationships, and the search for identity, St. Clair’s fantasy world also explores the dangers of celebrity worship, the limits of justice, and the consequences of personal power while delivering a contemporary perspective on the themes of human suffering and fate embedded in the ancient Greek myths that provide her source material.

This guide refers to the paperback edition published by Bloom Books, which picked up St. Clair’s self-published series and reprinted the second installment in 2021.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss an off-page suicide and attempted sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Persephone Rosi has reunited with Hades but is still uncertain about the security of their relationship, especially when he leaves her abruptly during an intimate encounter. She isn’t certain how to handle her newfound celebrity now that her status as Hades’ lover is public. Her best friend and roommate, Lexa Sideris, provides emotional support, and Persephone loves her job as a news reporter. Still, life in the Upperworld is a masquerade where she hides her divine form as the Goddess of Spring. She’s unsettled by the crowds that recognize her but doesn’t want to admit that her lifestyle might have to change. Instead, she turns to a janitor, Pirithous, to smuggle her in and out of her office building. The Goddess of Witchcraft, Hecate, is tutoring Persephone on how to control her magic, but whenever her emotions get out of control, Persephone finds vines or thorns growing from her body, and she bleeds when she rips them off.

When her friend Sybil, an oracle, is fired and Apollo takes away her powers because she won’t sleep with him, Persephone is outraged. She wants to write an article about Apollo the way she once wrote about Hades, but Hades, wishing to protect her from Apollo’s wrath, makes her promise not to. Persephone is upset when she meets Leuce, a former lover of Hades whom he turned into a tree after she betrayed him. Leuce asks Persephone for help reestablishing her life in the Upperworld.

Resentful as she increasingly realizes how many secrets Hades is keeping from her, including about his past, Persephone gives in to her outrage over Sybil’s plight and publishes an article denouncing Apollo. An angry Hades abducts Persephone to the Underworld using teleportation. She breaks in on the bargain between the two gods, in which Hades promises a future favor to Apollo and Apollo agrees to restore Sybil’s powers. Persephone and Hades reconcile, and he teaches her how to create growing things using her magic. Their sweet, shared moment is overshadowed when Persephone has a tense conversation with her mother, who tried to keep Persephone from Hades and doesn’t approve of them being together.

Lexa is hit by a car and seriously injured. Persephone begs Hades to help her friend. Hades says that bargaining for a life requires the exchange of a life, and he can’t approve that exchange—the cost is too great. Persephone doesn’t understand why Hades won’t help her. When Leuce tells her about a club called Iniquity, where she can barter for a magic spell, Persephone goes without telling Hades. She ends up confronting Kal Stavros, the ruthless CEO of her newspaper, who offers his help if Persephone publishes details about her affair with Hades. Hades, furious, intervenes and prevents the bargain. Persephone learns that Hades runs Iniquity and is essentially a mafia boss for all the criminals in New Athens. She’s fascinated by these new facets of his darkness.

Lexa doesn’t improve, and when her parents discuss taking her off life support, Persephone panics, goaded by her mother’s questioning of how Persephone could be with a man who let her best friend die. Persephone seeks out Apollo, the God of Healing, and strikes a bargain with him: She will spend time with him if he heals Lexa. Apollo angers her, and as she threatens him, Persephone reveals that she has the magic of a goddess.

Apollo heals Lexa’s body. She survives being taken off the ventilator, but Hades’ agents, the Furies, abduct Persephone to the Underworld. Apollo is outraged that she has broken his divine law and acted out of fear of death. Distraught by their encounter, Persephone takes refuge with Hecate, who advises Persephone to stop clinging to her mortal life.

Persephone then learns the consequences of her bargain. Though Lexa’s body is healed, her soul is broken, and she doesn’t understand why she’s still alive. Hades is distant but sends an Amazon, Zofie, to protect Persephone from hostile crowds. She is given nothing but busy work at her job because her boss is angry at her. Then Apollo forces her to witness as he punishes a satyr, Marsyas, who bragged that he was more musically gifted than Apollo. Enraged, Persephone uses her magic to free the satyr, but she realizes that her powers are still out of her control. The night of the solstice celebration in the Underworld, an event Persephone had been planning for months, Hades doesn’t appear until very late. Later, when she takes a walk in a part of the Underworld that she hasn’t seen before, Persephone sees Hades making love to Leuce. Hurt and enraged, she summons her magic and starts destroying his realm.

Hades invokes Hecate, and together, they stop Persephone, who learns that what she saw was an illusion, her greatest fear come to life. Leuce gave her drugged wine at Demeter’s direction. Persephone and Hades summon Demeter, and while Persephone forces an apology from her mother, she guesses that the goddess will seek retribution. A few days later, Hades takes Persephone on a horseback ride to a new part of his kingdom, and as they make love, he asks her to marry him. He assures her that he loves her for her own qualities and would want her even if the Fates hadn’t woven them together.

Persephone is heartbroken to learn that Lexa died by suicide. Lexa will come to the Underworld, but she will forget everything she knew, including their friendship. However, Lexa’s death helps Persephone begin to let go of her mortal persona. She moves out of her apartment and quits her job at the newspaper, deciding to start her own online news community. When she tries to leave the office, Persephone is kidnapped by Pirithous, who is obsessed with her. In self-defense, Persephone summons her magic and kills him. Hades appears to free her.

In the closing scene, Persephone attends a gala event as Hades’ date and is finally comfortable appearing in public. He offers her an engagement ring, confirming his love and commitment. However, it then begins to snow in August, and Hades interprets this as a sign that war is coming.