If you enjoy imaginative re-tellings of classic mythology, then Circe needs to be added to your reading list immediately. Award-winning author Madeline Miller crafts a fast-paced, absorbing, and ultimately life-affirming story. We are immersed in Circe’s fraught birth and childhood in the vicious court of Helios, the god of sun and her father. When she is banished to a desert island by Zeus for the crime of witchcraft, her long exile provides a rich environment for her practice. A veritable who's who of Greek mythology crosses the pages, and Madeline Miller breathes much-appreciated life into the old stories.
“This remarkable journey into mythology brings the ancient gods directly and viscerally into the present. Circe is a perfect mashup of elegant language, glorious storytelling, and exquisitely modern sensibilities. Miller's telling left me awed and moved by Circe and her story, all while wishing I could invite her over for a glass of wine on the porch. How this amazing author so perfectly melds the human and the divine, creating a story both immediate and epic, is dazzling.”
— Beth Albrecht, The Magic Tree Bookstore, Oak Park, IL
A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times Bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times).
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.