(Cover picture courtesy of Smashwords.)

Hera, Queen of the Gods, is the most powerful goddess on Mount Olympos. Beautiful, sensual, and merciless, she is a goddess renowned for her jealous rages and for inflicting horrors on hapless victims. She’s the protector of women, virtue, family and marriage yet her husband, Zeus, has had countless affairs. She puts up with it. Why? Is she really malicious or a product of circumstance?

For the first time ever in a candid interview, Hera shares what it’s like to be a goddess and wife to Zeus, the King of the Gods.

Drake Dabbler, chat show host, sees his exclusive interview with Queen Hera as a sure road to a Daytime Emmy… He should have been more thorough in his research.

[Full disclosure: Luciana Cavallaro sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]

I definitely had my doubts about A Goddess’ Curse simply because it was focusing on Hera, who is renowned throughout Greek mythology for fitting the jealous woman stereotype.  Her treatment of Zeus’ lovers was well-documented as was her part in the Trojan War.  So when I started this short story I was wondering if Luciana Cavallaro would go for the Ice Queen interpretation or something a little more sympathetic.

As it turns out, she decided on a combination of the two.  Learning about Hera in her own words through an interview with an over-zealous TV host is interesting, but the reactions she gives said TV host are priceless.  Not only do you get to see her side of the story in her own words, you get to see flashes of her personality in her interactions with other characters.  I like Luciana Cavallaro’s interpretation of Hera and I absolutely love how she stays true to the goddess’ character by revealing her actions at the end of the story.  I don’t want to spoil things, but what she does is very, very similar to what happened to some of Zeus’ lovers.

There really isn’t much more to say.  Both Drake and Hera were great characters who had interesting interactions, the plot was fast-paced and Luciana Cavallaro covered pretty much all of the topics of interest in the interview.  I’m starting to love the way she lets famous women tell their stories because telling them in third person but having the characters do an interview is very insightful.  Honestly, I wish we had a whole novel from Hera’s point of view.  Yes, A Goddess’ Curse was really that good.

I give this short story 5/5 stars.

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