Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Acheron, a demi-god, born into the body of a human and forced to live in the mortal realm away from his family in the royal family in Greece, is the twin of Prince Styxx.  Because of a birth defect - his eyes being different from everyone else's - he is disowned, shamed and sent away to the city of Atlantis to his Uncle Estes to become a whore; to become nobody; to be ignored.  This is until his older sister Ryssa receives a collection of letters, which she thinks is from him, stating that she should come and collect him before it's too late.  When she does, she barely recognises her brother as he is treated like a slave by anyone who approaches him, his rooms are kept dark and he's beaten if he does not obey and does not pull in enough money for Uncle Estes.

Ryssa takes him away from Atlantis and brings him back to his original home of the palace, where the family learns soon that if Acheron is treated badly, is starved or beaten, his brother - Styxx - suffers in the same way.  The family learns that if Acheron dies - so does Styxx; and so they begin to look after the one they have been embarrassed of for so long; still hiding him from the public.  However, the Greek Gods have been watching over him... so has Artemis; who tricks him into her service; until his twenty-first birthday, when Acheron receives the most astonishing gift of all.  He is given all of his powers and is turned into the God of Destruction.

Over 11,000 years later, Archeron has adjusted and become a citizen of the 21st Century.  He's a God who can walk among humans, travel within a blink of an eye and see the past, future and know the thoughts of every human around him.  This is until he meets Soteria, archeologist from Greece; a human he can't read at all.  Acheron is warned by his mother that this woman has discovered where Atlantis is, found Ryssa's journals and she orders him to protect her at all costs.  However, without knowing what she's thinking, how is he supposed to know what to do?  The first thing he has to do is let her into his life; and after more than a life time of distrust from anyone he has been in contact with, can he trust this one human with his heart, mind and soul; as well as his massive secret that he's not exactly what she thinks he is?

Wow! What a book!  I found this book with a bag of other books outside a house on Kingston Road last year on my way to the bus stop to go shopping.  And going by the size of it, I knew it was one heck of story.  So, I waited until this year to get my nose into it.  It took me almost a month to read and I'm glad I took my time; as there was so much detail in it.  However, I found that the first part was hard-going, but the second part was a lot easier; as the characters were already established and - with all the high tech devices - it was easy to relate to the characters and have a bit of a laugh with some of the Gods and Goddess who hadn't kept up with the times.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author, Sherrilyn Kenyon, who is proud of her Cherokee mixed heritage, lives a life of extraordinary danger... as does any woman with three sons, a husband, a menagerie of pets and a collection of swords that all of the above have a major fixation with. But when not running interference (or dashing off to the emergency room), she's found chained to her computer where she likes to play with all her imaginary friends. With more than twenty-three million copies of her books in print, in over thirty countries, she certainly has a lot of friends to play with too.
In the past two years, her books have claimed the coveted #1 bestselling spot twelve times. This extraordinary bestseller continues to top every genre she writes. Her current series include: The Dark-Hunters, The League, Lords of Avalon, BAD Agency and the Chronicles of Nick. Since 2004, she has placed over fifty novels on the New York Times.
Her Lords of Avalon novels have been adapted by Marvel and her Dark-Hunter novels are now a New York Times bestselling manga published by St. Martins.