Stephanie's Journal

From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough

Genre:
Nonfiction, Memoir, Nonfiction Music, Biography/Autobiography

Publication Date:
October 8, 2024

Page Numbers:
304

Read/Finished Date:
September 29th, 2025

Rating:
DNF'ed @ 30%

Premise:

Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Audiobook (2024), Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir (2024)
In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir.

A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.

Review:

While this would have been a fascinating book on the life of Lisa Marie, it was also boring to the point I struggled to get past thirty percent of the novel. The fonts for both Lisa and her daughter often confused me, as they were nearly identical and Lisa Marie comes across as a spoiled, entitled brat throughout it. I just couldn't find it within myself to finish the novel.

I did hear the audiobook is better and maybe one day I will listen to it.

Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt, #1) by K.D. Stark

Genre:
Romantasy, Fantasy Romance, Mythology, Greek Gods, Greek Mythology, Historical Romance, Historical, Hades and Persephone, Retellings, Reimagining

Publication Date:
September 16, 2025

Page Numbers:
382

Read/Finished Date:
September 24th, 2025 - September 25th, 2025

Rating:
4/5

Premise:

War rages above. Death stirs below. And the Fates are far from silent.
As the Trojan War shatters kingdoms, a goddess and a queen stand on the cusp of legend.

Persephone, goddess of spring, was meant to remain untouched by shadow. Hidden by her mother in an attempt to outwit the Fates, she has been raised far from Olympus and the world of men. But when a chance encounter with Hades, the formidable ruler of the Underworld, binds their paths, she is thrust into a realm of power, peril, and desire. In his kingdom of shadowed beauty, she must decide if she is captive... or queen.

Above, Helen of Troy faces her own reckoning, shackled to the besieged city of Troy. Stolen by Paris, she walks a dangerous line between survival and defiance. From within Troy’s bloodstained walls, she becomes ensnared in a treacherous dance with Achilles—the infamous warlord whose wrath threatens to destroy all.

As the Underworld swells with the dead, Persephone and Helen must to follow the threads spun for them by the Fates. Or else sever them, and weave something new.

Two women. One war. And a destiny poised between ruin and rebirth.

Readers of Madeline Miller, Jennifer Saint, and Natalie Haynes will be spellbound by this lush, lyrical tale of gods, mortals, and fate.
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Content This novel contains mature themes and emotionally intense scenes—including war, violence, and sensuality—told in a style reflective of ancient myth. Reader discretion advised.

Review:

During the chaos of the Trojan War, two women—Persephone, goddess of spring, and Helen of Troy—face changes in their lives that will define their destinies. Persephone, known as Kore, was hidden from the world to escape the Fates, encounters Hades, and is drawn into the Underworld's dark allure, forcing her to choose between being Hades's captive or his beloved queen.

Meanwhile, once a queen of Sparta, Helen, caught within the besieged city of Troy, must navigate the dangers of war, forming a deadly dance with one of the most infamous warlords, Achilles. As the dead flood the Underworld, both women must decide whether to follow the threads laid out or forge new paths, with their choices shaping a destiny that could change the world.

I am not going to lie when I say I was a bit apprehensive. I had read countless Hades and Persephone stories and each one continued to follow the same formula—she's abducted. Her mother searches the world for her and becomes enemy #1. This book was different. Hades is far more attentive to her and treats her as his equal, not as a trophy. He places her next to him, allows her to help pass judgment on the souls coming into the Underworld, and he never stifles her. He gives her freedom, unlike the other Hades I have read.

The one thing I do wish we could have seen Algaia a bit more instead of the little pieces here and there. I think her story is or was rather interesting. Plus I would love to know more about the ending of Hephaetsus and Aphrodite's marriage.

Overall, this story has a lot of potential and I am looking forward to seeing how the story continues with the next book.