Circe : a novel

Title:

Circe : a novel

Author:

Miller, Madeline, author.

Personal Author:

Miller, Madeline, author.

ISBN:

9780316556347

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

393 pages : map ; 25 cm

General Note:

Map on endpaper.

Abstract:

Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

Personal Subject:

Circe (Mythological character)-Fiction.

Subject Term:

Gods -- Fiction.

Animals, Mythical -- Fiction.

Heroes -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Genre:

Mythological fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... East End	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... East End	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION MILLER	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a "bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story" that brilliantly reimagines the life of Circe, formidable sorceress of The Odyssey (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.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

#1 New York Times Bestseller -- named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post , People , Time , Amazon, Entertainment Weekly , Bustle , Newsweek , the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor , Refinery 29 , Buzzfeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus , Publishers Weekly , Thrillist, NYPL, Self , Real Simple , Goodreads, Boston Globe , Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian , Book Riot, Seattle Times , and Business Insider .

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch."Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers." So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller's dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus' crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: "When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist." Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: "I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began." This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that "not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead." Circe's fascination with mortals becomes the book's marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside "the tonic of ordinary things." A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller's readership to mushroom like one of Circe's spells.Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.