ARC Review: Wicked Beauty (Dark Olympus #3) by Katee Robert

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert
Series: Dark Olympus #3
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on June 7, 2022
Genres: Adult Retelling, Adult Romance
Pages: 400
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating:
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Blurb:

She was the face that launched a thousand ships,
The fierce beauty at the heart of Olympus,
And she was never ours to claim.

In Olympus, you either have the power to rule… or you are ruled. Achilles Kallis may have been born with nothing, but as a child he vowed he would claw his way into the poisonous city’s inner circle. Now that a coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to compete and double their odds of winning.

Neither expect infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize… or for the complicated fire that burns the moment she looks their way.

Zeus may have decided Helen is his to give to away, but she has her own plans. She enters into the competition as a middle finger to the meddling Thirteen rulers, effectively vying for her own hand in marriage. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather see her dead than lead the city. The only people she can trust are the ones she can’t keep her hands off—Achilles and Patroclus. But can she really believe they have her best interests at heart when every stolen kiss is a battlefield?

A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Helen of Troy, Achilles, and Patroclus that’s as sinful as it is sweet.

My Review

The first book I read by this author was when I listened to an audiobook of the second one in this series, Electric Idol. And I loved it! So I was so shocked and excited when I got an ARC copy of this in the mail earlier this year. At first I worried that maybe reading wouldn’t be as good as listening, but I was wrong, because once I started this, I was sucked right in!

This story goes a little more steamy because we have three characters in this couple. Helen and Achilles and Patroclus. We’ve met Helen a little bit more I feel in the last book, but Achilles and Patroclus were newer to me. All three characters were competing to become Ares. I was totally rooting for Helen, but I also wondered if it might end up that Achilles would actually get Ares in the end because that was how it seemed things would go. I mean the challenges they had to compete in, especially the final one, were all very physical.

I would have been good with any of them winning. In fact if it had even been Patroclus, that would be okay, as long as the three of them were able to get past things and get back to being the throuple that they seemed to fit perfectly together. The competitions were all interesting, the first one a bit like that tv show my family watches, American Ninja, I think it’s called. The second one had a maze, and I loved Helen’s solution to it! The third one was just fighting, all of them at once. I guess I’d thought it might be matches set up, and only two fighting at a time, but the way it went was more chaos and led to the way things all worked out to crown a new Ares, if crowning is the correct word for this.

And oh my gosh, the steamy times with these three were so hot! I definitely think they were written in a way to get the reader squirming in their seat and feeling the steam coming off the characters and their actions. But it was more than just that which made them a great couple. We got to see how each one had their own personality and how they all fit together physically and actual relationship-wise. All I know now is that I need to back and read the first one and any novellas that go with it to make sure I know all that happened with all characters. And we’ve got a big deal coming up with outsiders factoring into future stories. I loved how the author gave us a Minotaur.