She knows what it's like to die
A series of Young Adult novels written by Meg Cabot. The series is a modern retelling of the Greek Myth of Persephone and Hades.
Pierce Oliviera has had a near death experience. Actually, she really did die. After drowning in her pool, Pierce woke up in the Underworld, where John Hayden - the Lord of the Underworld, has chosen her to be his consort. Frightened as the prospect of being bound for eternity at the tender age of 15, Pierce escapes back to the realm of the living.
Two years later, Pierce and her mother move to her hometown of Isla Huesos. Despite Pierce attempting to move on, she feels John's presence everywhere and cannot shake the idea of him still following her. But there is another presence, a much more unsettling force. The Furies, vengeful spirits, who want to cause John anguish and force him to suffer. By using Pierce, if necessary.
Pierce begins to learn more about the history and secrets of Isla Huesos, the Underworld, her family, and John himself and begins to fall in love with the man she once feared.
Books in the Series:
- Abandon (2011)
- Underworld (2012)
- Awaken (2013)
Tropes Appearing in the Abandon Series:
- Abduction Is Love: Subverted in that Pierce started falling for John before he took her to the Underworld the second time, and she's less than happy about the situation. He starts regretting the decision when he realizes that he's causing her parents anguish, and lets her return to Isla de los Huesos in Underworld to stop Alex from dying.
- Action Girl: Pierce becomes this in Awaken when she defeats an army of Furies. Kayla also qualifies.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Pierce and John, though John tends to calm down under Pierce's influence.
- All Therapists Are Muggles: Pierce faces this problem during her depression following her near death experience. Thus when Mr. Smith asks her how long have you known John, she is flabbergasted and relieved to be able to vent about him.
- Annoying Younger Cousin: Alex views Pierce as this, but in actuality he's this to her.
- Badass Adorable: Henry, the cabin boy on John's crew.
- Beta Couple: Frank and Kayla, Chloe and Reed, Mr. Graves and Mrs. Engle
- Big Man on Campus: Seth Rector, leaning towards Jerk Jock.
- Book Dumb: Pierce, following her accident, just can't perform well in school. Almost all of the kids in New Pathways and D-Wing count.
- Bratty Teenage Son: Alex. He gets better.
- Break Her Heart to Save Her: John tries doing this when he encounters Pierce in the Isla de los Huesos graveyard, where she tries to give him back her necklace.
- Catchphrase: "Check yourself before you wreck yourself."
- Chekhov's Gun: Pierce's necklace, that John gave her. On one hand, it makes her a target of bad people, but on the other it's because the necklace's jewel is the only thing that can kill a Fury.
- Chekhov's Skill: Pierce's dad taught her how to throw a punch. It comes in handy when her grandmother tries to kill her at the end of Abandon.
- Chew-Out Fake-Out: Mr. Smith wants to talk to Pierce about finding her necklace at the site of apparently graveyard vandalism, which was due to John kicking the gates off their hinges. She prepares to bribe him, expecting him to accuse her of being responsible for the gate, but instead he asks "How long have you known John?"
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Pierce suffers from this, much to John's chagrin. It often gets her in trouble.
- Convenient Colour Change: The Persephone Diamond helpfully alerts Pierce whenever Furies are near by turning black.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: Pierce after John breaks Mr. Mueller's hand. Even though the police reason that she wasn't strong enough to do such a thing, she gets expelled for it and people try to shame her online. She doesn't care though because Mr. Mueller is put on indefinite leave.
- Cool Old Guy: Mr. Smith reveals himself as one, complete with an unintended Chew-Out Fake-Out.
- Demonic Possession: How the Furies operate. They are able to take over a Weak-Willed person and control them. Apart from the Persephone Diamond, there's no way of detecting them apart from normal humans.
- Double Standard: Pierce is so disgusted by the Double Standard others have towards the relationship between Mr. Mueller and Hannah that she takes matters into her own hands. And for good reason— Hannah faces Slut-Shaming online, while Mr. Mueller is getting extra baked goods and sympathy points from the student body and their parents.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Though the first two books make you question how we reach that happy ending in the first place. Pierce manages to destroy all the Furies coming after her and John, but she Can't Stay Normal and has to stay with John having spent the night with him. She mentions wanting to get a time-share for them on Isla De los Huesos and wants to raise a family.
- Engineered Public Confession: Pierce tries to get one out of Mr. Mueller about Hannah by agreeing to a tutoring session and arming herself with a security camera. Subverted in that it's too dark to film due to Mr. Mueller turning off most of the lights and John interferes . . .
- Evil Matriarch: Pierce's grandmother
- Gratuitous Spanish: Most of Isla Huesos. Justified as they are near Cuba.
- Mayfly–December Romance: John is over a hundred years old and still appears to be 19. He's old enough that the person originally meant to be his consort was Pierce's mother.
- Meaningful Name:
- Pierce (Persephone), John Hayden (Hades), Zachary and Deborah (Zeus and Demeter)
- The pet's names: Alastor, Typhon, and Hope.
- Isla Huesos aka Island of Bones
- My Greatest Failure:
- Pierce's mom feels this way about her brother taking the rap for her and the senior Rector playing with ancient skulls and ending up in jail. She never revealed the truth though it would exonerate Uncle Chris because said ex-boyfriend threatened to hurt Chris.
- Pierce feels this way about her best friend Hannah's suicide.
- Never Mess with Granny: A villainous example with Pierce's grandmother.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: This happens several times:
- Kayla got put in D wing because she stopped her junkie brother from abusing her mother.
- Why did Pierce get expelled from her old school? Because she outed Mr. Mueller as a predator during an evening tutoring session, though John was responsible for the bone shattering.
- Jade, Pierce's guidance counselor, got killed while patrolling a graveyard to watch out for vandals.
- John saving Pierce from her grandmother got him photographed and portrayed as an abductor.
- Pierce saving the jeweler from John led to the jeweler's daughter, a cop, attempt to Taze Pierce for revenge. Thank goodness she touched the Diamond and got cured.
- Patricide: Eventually revealed to be John's big crime.
- Police Are Useless: In this case, however, it's also because some of the police are possessed by Furies. When they try to kill Pierce, the regular police are shocked.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Pierce's dad, surprisingly enough. He gets along well with John in Awaken.
- Really 700 Years Old: John and his crew are well over 100-years-old.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Pierce's dad is perplexed about why John doesn't use his powers, namely teleportation, to run a profitable business.
- Shrinking Violet: Though she was once in Drama class, Pierce gets very anxious around people even after she makes friends and after her Near Death experience.
- Stealth Pun: Abandon/Abaddon.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Mr. Mueller and Hannah, unusual in that it is one-sided and it's implied that Mr. Mueller doesn't care that Hannah killed herself.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Discussed by the gravedigger, who points out the obvious: storming hell with this trope is a bit pointless. He's right in HIS universe.
- Tsundere: Pierce comes across as a Type A, especially towards John, when she tells herself that she isn't hurt by his words of leaving her alone. She really isn't hurt.
- The Underworld: Plays it straight by making it a waiting room before the final destination. Changes it to being a cavern with a lake in it. Also, there are multiple Underworlds, John just controls the one under Isla Huesos.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- This is a book about the Underworld, so this trope is played with.
- Pierce thinks this of herself after her near-death experience, and John thought Pierce was like this after he learned she staged her tutoring session with Mr. Mueller, to obtain an Engineered Public Confession. The truth is actually more complicated, since Furies were involved in both cases.
- Alex is more like this, however, given he got a clear warning about his antics getting him buried alive, as well as running off to bust the Rectors after being driven home.
- Wham Line: Mr. Smith delivers one to Pierce during his Chew-Out Fake-Out: "How long have you known John?"
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: John tries to do this to the humans possessed by Furies, but Pierce stops him each time. When Mr. Mueller shows up in Awaken, Pierce's friends simply run him over with a car.
- Wife Husbandry: Implied. Pierce is made sure to meet John when she's little so she will meet him again when she dies at an older age. The plan initially involved Pierce's mother.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Kayla overhears Pierce, John and Frank's supernatural discussion and assumes they are vampires
