Beryl Grace

Beryl Grace was briefly the lover of Zeus/Jupiter and the mother of Thalia and Jason Grace. Thalia described her as being an alcoholic and she later died in a car accident.

History
Beryl Grace dated Zeus during the eighties, when she was a TV starlet with a "big poofy eighties hairdo." Their relationship resulted in the birth of Thalia Grace. However, Zeus eventually had to leave her to return to his duties on Olympus. Beryl didn't take it well, as she felt that she was better than most people because she had attracted the king of the gods. This resulted in an inflated ego and she eventually turned to alcohol, eventually ruining her life and career. This lead to many arguments with her daughter, Thalia.

Seven years after Thalia was born, Zeus returned to Beryl (this time in his Roman form; Jupiter), which Thalia thinks was because he felt bad for the way her life was going. He stayed for awhile and Beryl improved her behavior, loving the attention Jupiter gave her. The two also had another child, much to Hera's anger. In order to appease the goddess, Jupiter and Beryl decided to name the boy Jason, after Hera's favorite mortal. However, Jupiter eventually left them and Thalia only stayed with her mom because she didn't trust her alone with Jason.

Two years after Jason was born, Beryl took the family on a vacation near the Wolf House. Beryl told Thalia to go get the picnic basket from the car. While she was gone, Beryl offered Jason up to Hera as a peace offering. When Thalia returned, Beryl told Thalia he was as good as dead as she cried on the stone steps. Thalia had thought her mother had finally lost her mind and searched for her brother, eventually calling the police on her own mom. Beryl was questioned for a long time, but she wasn't arrested and turned on Thalia, saying she betrayed her. The mother and daughter argued before Thalia eventually left home.

Beryl only got worse from there. She developed a drinking problem, which grew progressively worse over time, ultimately resulting in a car accident that took her life, two years before Thalia was awakened from her tree by the Golden Fleece.

The Sword of Hades
Thalia, Percy Jackson, and Nico di Angelo are in the Underworld on a mission for Persephone to recover Hades' stolen sword. When traveling through the Fields of Asphodel, Thalia looks around at the faces, looking for her mother. Also, Melinoe appears to Thalia as Beryl, yelling at her for abandoning her. Thalia is shocked by this, and protests that her mom had abandoned her. Percy manages to destroy the illusion by out smarting Melinoe and Thalia is very shaken up from the experience.

The Lost Hero
When Thalia is reunited with Jason, she explains what happened the day he disappeared and mentions the reasons she ran away from her mother. She also tells him how she died two years before Thalia was awoken.

The House of Hades
Beryl is briefly mentioned by Jason when he was thinking about his father.

The Blood of Olympus
Shortly after Jason departs from the House of Hades, his nightmares become much worse, but the one with Hera and Beryl is the worst of all: after Jason dies from seeing Hera's divine form, he sees himself as a baby once again, and his mother kneels beside him and promises to see him again soon. Jason longs for her ghost to stop tormenting him. At the feast at Odysseus Palace, Beryl appears to Jason, telling him she meant to come back to him but she was forbidden by Juno and Jupiter to come and see him again. Jason asks her why she was at the feast, she proclaims that she wants life, youth and beauty but she was abandoned by Olympus and Zeus. But she remarks that she thinks of Jason as her proud warrior. He works out that his mother, Beryl, is actually a mania, a spirit of insanity to that she had been reduced to at her death and afterwards. At this Beryl wants her son to come back to her and that they can be a family together, but Jason refuses, and proclaims that he is no child of hers to this she disappears with a hiss or sigh of relief.

Personality
Beryl Grace was a very self-centered person. She believed that her looks and talent was enough to get her anywhere she wanted to go. Even before she met Zeus, she already had some serious problems, including drinking and pulling stupid stunts to get her face in the tabloids. After Zeus fell in love with her the first time, she felt more like she had made some kind of grand achievement and her ego grew. So much so that when he left, her more serious flaws emerged and she turned to drinking. When Zeus returned as Jupiter, she relished in the attention he gave her and improved until he left once again, causing her downward spiral. When Thalia called the police on her after Jason vanished, Beryl turned on Thalia, believing she had betrayed her own mother instead of siding with her and agreeing it was the right choice. Her bad habits eventually lead to her death in a car accident as she had been drinking.

Appearance
She is described as being a tall, beautiful woman with a big poofy eighties blonde hairdo and blue eyes. In The Blood of Olympus, Jason describes her as having a lemony scent, her features "watery and indistinct", and her voice bright and brittle: "like the thinnest layer of ice over a fast stream."

Trivia

 * She is the only mortal to parent a both a Greek and a Roman Demigod.
 * Even though Beryl is mentioned multiple times in both series, her first actual appearance is in The Blood of Olympus, since the ghost in The Sword of Hades is Melinoe in disguise, not the real Beryl.
 * Hera called herself Beryl in Percy Jackson's Greek Gods instead of Beroe.