Review of “The Golden Apple” by Mika Mathews

Score: 88/100 (8.8 out of 10)

The Golden Apple is a spellbinding fantasy-mythology novel by Mika Mathews. It is the second book in the Oaths of Dante series which began with The Silver Coin, a previous Outstanding Creator Award-winning book that we very much enjoyed.

In this book, we rejoin Dante, a young sorcerer, healer, and werewolf as he begins his quest for one of the golden apples formerly held by Atlas, the Titan who famously bears the sky (or, in this telling of the story, the “boundary between realms”). With this apple, Dante can fulfill his oath to Hecate and Gaia, restoring balance and peace to the world—a world that is so inflicted that fewer than a billion humans remain!

This book involves several fascinating figures from mythology like Pandora, Aphrodite, Arachne, Lilith, Hecate, Gaia, Medea, Thea, Hades, and Persephone.

He also rubs shoulders with original characters like Christopher, his lover (making this an LGBTQA+ story), and Cypress.

Christopher actually reminded us a lot of Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings as he is always looking after Dante, even when Dante becomes impulsive or anxious.

Pandora actually seems to serve as the new tritagonist of the story, after Dante and Christopher. This beautiful girl from mythology, commissioned by the order of Zeus himself to punish humanity, serves as a kind of informant or a guide to our two heroes. In a sense, she is a catalyst that gets the ball rolling. But can Pandora, the supposed corruptor of humanity—the one who released evil into the world—really be trusted? Frankie, Thea's husband, seems to think that she's up to something...

Perhaps the most entertaining and amusing aspect of this book is Dante's shapeshifting. As a result of a curse, Dante is now a werewolf who makes his new home with a pack of wolves. It is rather endearing how the author describes his dog-like/wolf-like features and behavior. He kinda reminded us of Simon from Simon Hunter by Kathryn Cain, who was also a werewolf.

To overcome his curse and continue his mission, Dante must travel to the Temple of Fear. Along the way, he also undergoes Herculean training, making him a more complete and well-rounded hero (as most of the previous book surrounded his magical and healing abilities).

Dante's hero journey has been compelling since book one. However, some of the issues remain. There's a disjointed nature to the presentation of the plot in this book. There are a lot of characters—mythological and normal—who come in and out of the book. There are a lot of ideas—some of them great—and plot-threads that seem to be just thrown in and scattered in here like pulp at the bottom of orange juice or sprinkles on ice cream. It often seems unnecessary.

Most of this book isn't Dante going on his journey, it's really Dante just talking to people, training, and preparing for journey that's yet to come. That might be largely due to the simple problem of being the second book in a multi-part series. The second installment of a series usually suffers in these regards. Every now and then, you get an Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2, or even Rocky II, but those are far and in between.

There are some bright spots. For example, we get some character development/moments from Dante's mom who admits, “I was not always the victim” and, thus, Dante's dad was not always the horrible, terrible, irredeemably evil person he viewed him as. This is interesting because there's always two sides to each story, and it's rare for someone who hates someone to admit something good about them. It's rare for someone to admit their own faults.

There are also some nice lines like, “to be afraid is to be alive.”

Lastly, this book has one of the best covers of the season!

Check it out on Amazon!