There is something about Greek mythology that is endlessly captivating. The stories of the gods, demigods and their trials have been told many times, and yet I still find myself drawn to these tales. One of my favorite retellings is Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini. Angelini’s take on Greek mythology seamlessly blends with my favorite romance tropes, including enemies to lovers and forbidden love. Starcrossed is told from the perspective of Helen, aka “Lennie,” an extraordinary teenager from the small island of Nantucket. Lennie is stronger, faster and more beautiful than her peers, but she shies away from the attention she draws, preferring to blend into the background. Her life is upended when a new family moves to town and her encounters with them reveal an ancestry that explains why she has never fit in. She learns that the Greek myths are real and she’s caught up right in the middle of them. The choices she makes will determine the fate of the world, but it seems like her destiny has already been written.
—Meagan, Brand & Production Manager
If you’re looking for a mythology-inspired read that is (unlike The Odyssey) somewhat bite-size, check out Ecstasy. This horror/thriller from Ivy Pochoda, whose 2020 mystery These Women was a finalist for the Edgar Award, unfolds in stylish, poetic prose, topped off with a gory finish. It’s loosely based on Euripides’ The Bacchae, but can also be described as one woman’s fever dream of a midlife crisis. Lena, a former dancer, is trying to find herself after the death of her domineering husband and escape from under the thumb of her similarly controlling adult son. Will the siren song emerging from a collective of women on the beach be her salvation, or her destruction? Readers of Ecstasy will be furiously flipping pages to find out.
—Trisha, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
There’s something about getting inside a teenager’s head that strips away pretense and gets right to the emotional stakes. Maybe that’s why the myth of Icarus is such a good fit for YA. Tracy Barrett’s Freefall Summer takes inspiration from the ancient tale but swaps wings for parachutes, following 16-year-old Clancy, the daughter of skydivers. After losing his wife in a skydiving accident, Clancy’s protective father insists she’ll never jump, even as she spends her days packing parachutes at the family’s drop zone. Barrett, a former skydiver, fills the novel with authentic terminology and details, making the setting convincing without feeling too technical. (I’ll happily remain a permanent “whuffo”—skydiver speak for someone who’s never made a jump.) As much as I enjoyed learning about the sport, I was just as struck by the way Barrett transforms one of mythology’s most famous cautionary tales into something unexpectedly hopeful. Freefall Summer is certainly about risk, but it’s equally about grief, trust and finding the courage to chart your own course.
—Katherine, Subscriptions
Since I first read Anne Carson’s novel in verse, Autobiography of Red, as a teenager, it’s always been what I think of first when it comes to retellings. Carson, like many myth-retellers, is a classicist known for her creative interpretative choices. (If Not, Winter is a standout translation of Sappho’s fragments.) In Autobiography of Red, she takes a poem by the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus about Hercules’ killing of the red-winged monster Geryon, as one of his 12 labors, and reinvents it as a mesmerizing queer coming-of-age story of difference, first love and first heartbreak. You don’t need to “get” what Carson is doing with the words of Stesichorus to enjoy this book. Readers of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles who are willing to get a little formally weird will eat this up. But for those interested, it adds to the experience to follow how Carson’s marvelously anachronistic translations of Stesichorus’ fragments, presented at the beginning of the book, are echoed in her retelling: “The red world And corresponding red breezes / Went on” becoming “All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand / in hand.”
—Phoebe, Associate Editor