Sweet Obsession is fantastic, but can’t be read as a standalone. The romance between Icarus and Poseidon is one of the best of the Dark Olympus series. Sweet Obsession also does two things that needed to happen at this point in the series. One it brings us firmly back into Olympus’s politics in the upper city. Two, by giving us more Hera and Zeus, and finally letting us meet Circe, it sets the hook for the final two books in the series.
At the end of Dark Restraint, Ariadne and The Minotaur are able to escape Olympus when the barrier falls because Icarus has taken Poseidon captive on the dock. That situation is quickly reversed with Poseidon becoming Icarus’s jailer. One of Poseidon’s men takes initiative and tortures Icarus to get more information about Circe, which Poseidon stops. Now Poseidon is a caretaker as well as a jailer, and Icarus decides it is to his advantage to seduce him. There is a danger when a relationship goes from manipulative seduction to romantic love that there will be a magical D. After all, Icarus is an accomplished seducer, why would he be so foolish as to fall in love with his target?
Katee Robert is too accomplished a writer to fall into that trap, so what we get is two characters taken by surprise. We get a buckling knee that changes everything. Poseidon flips the script on the power dynamics of their burgeoning relationship. Icarus, who knows better, is cracked open and real feelings are formed. I bought the insta love because Katee Robert gives us a mental emotional and physical foundation for it. Icarus and Poseidon are both tired of the games that have dominated their lives and the pressures created by Circe’s blockade make for an emotional crucible. I’ve enjoyed the Dark Olympus series, but I think this might be my favorite Katee Robert book since Your Dad Will Do.
I was always going to read the whole series, but I’m more interested now in how the next two books are going to resolve the overarching plot as well as get these relationships to a happily ever after. The politics are politicking hard in Sweet Obsession. As members of the Thirteen are scrambling to save the city and/or their own people, the structural problems in the system that gives the Thirteen their power are highlighted.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Sourcebooks and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.