Before Ariadne runs away with Theseus: "Today I would seize my destiny for myself ... My story would not be one of death and suffering and sacrifice." No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women's pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats." An ancient story of love and sisterhood reimagined, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne is a truly masterful debut—compulsive, absorbing and lyrical. Saint breathes new life into the forgotten women of Greek mythology with a novel that's both incredibly absorbing, and full of heart.” This book reminded me of “Circe” by Madeline Miller, especially as both characters find themselves alone on an island. I’d say read this if you also loved Circe. It’s just really a shame because as much as I dislike “and they lived happily ever after” because I don’t mind a bit of pain, I REALLY don’t like to read about all women needlessly suffering at the hands of or because of men and that being the only message I take away from this novel when it was advertised as a “brilliant feminist debut” and WHEN THERE WAS AN AMAZING ALTERNATIVE WITHIN ESTABLISHED MYTHOLOGY.

But when I thought of Scylla, I thought of the foolish and all-too-human girl, gasping for breath amid the froth of waves churning in the wake of my father’s boat. I saw her weighed down in the tumultuous water not just by the iron chains in which my father had bound her but also by the terrible truth that she had sacrificed everything she knew for a love as ephemeral and transient as the rainbows that glimmered through the sea spray.This novel is a retelling of the Theseus and the Minotaur myth from the perspective of Ariadne, princess of Crete and sister to the Minotaur, who helps Theseus conquer the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. Another issue I had: with the timeline of other heroes, speaking of Heracles in Theseus’ past because he was Theseus’ mentor, and then later introducing Perseus, who was not described as old as far as I can remember, knowing Perseus is actually Heracles’ GREAT GRANDFATHER doesn’t make any sense. It’s Ancient Greece so I’m going to assume that Perseus should be dead if Heracles was in his prime before Theseus even met Ariadne (so probably like 15+ years in the past at that point) A beautiful epic…In a world ruled by temperamental, petulant gods, Ariadne is a shining beacon of female strength and courage—making this a story that’s impossible to forget.” My tears had stilled now and I listened intently. I only knew Medusa as a monster. I had not thought she had ever been anything else. The stories of Perseus did not allow for a Medusa with a story of her own. Enchanting…Saint expertly highlights how often the women of this world pay the price for the actions of the men around them. Lovers of mythology should snap this up.”

As a young woman, however, I danced alone. The tapping of my feet across the shining wood created a rhythm in which I could lose myself, a whirling dance that could consume me. Even without music it could muffle the distant rumble that groaned beneath our feet and the skitter of tremendous hooves far below the ground at the heart of the construction that had truly cemented Daedalus’ fame. I would stretch my arms out, reaching upward to the peaceful sky, forgetting for the duration of the dance the horrors that dwelled underneath us. I loved the twist on the Greek heroes. Theseus is an asshole and I loved hating on him. I enjoyed all the different elements and characters, including Daedalus and Icarus.

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I shook myself from my appalled silence. “Why did you tell us that story, Eirene, instead of one of the usual ones?” The story continues to follow the separate lives of the two sisters until they meet again years later when it is apparent that both women bear the scars of sorrow, love, betrayal and now deep seeded suspicion of each other as the events that shaped them now threatens to pull them apart. When you read Greek Mythology, you know tragedy is just lurking around the corner and this book is no different. A mesmerising retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Perfect for fans of CIRCE, A SONG OF ACHILLES, and THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS. Even though they parted ways rather abruptly, the two sisters never stopped caring and looking for each other. You can witness the way their lives advance as they grow older, each on her own path, but forever thinking of each other. In the very early days, my mother, Pasiphae, would dance with me; indeed, it was she who had taught me. Not formal, set patterns of steps; rather, she gave me the gift of making fluid, sinuous shapes out of crazy, chaotic movements. I watched how she flung herself into the music and transformed it into a graceful frenzy, and I followed suit. She would make a game of it for me, calling out constellations for me to trace with my feet on the floor, star formations that she would weave stories of, as well as dances. “Orion!” she’d say, and I would hop frantically from space to space, imagining the points of light that made the doomed hunter in the sky. “Artemis placed him there so she could look upon him every night,” she had told me, confidingly, when we’d flopped together to regain our breath.

It's moments like these that remind me of the missed opportunity to really give a nuanced feminist slant to these myths. Saint takes the easy wins but seems incapable of stringing them all together into a grand theme or message. The story broadens, forks,spins, and braids through the perspective of multiple narrators, and the resultis fascinating and unpredictable…A great read.” Stories told that, at the moment of her drowning, Scylla was transformed into a seabird. Far from giving her escape from her cruel fate, she was immediately set upon in an endless chase by the crimson-streaked eagle bent upon eternal vengeance. I could well believe the truth of it, for the gods did enjoy a prolonged spectacle of pain. Athena was angry,” Eirene went on. “A virgin goddess, she could not stand for such a brazen crime in her own temple. She must punish the girl who was so shameless as to be overpowered by Poseidon and to offend Athena’s sight so vilely with her undoing.”

My mother, Pasiphae, is a daughter of Helios, the great god of the sun. Unlike the searing blaze of my grandfather, she shimmered with a gentle golden radiance. I remember the soft beams of her strange, bronze-tinged eyes, the warmth of summer in her embrace, and the molten sunshine in her laughter in the days of my childhood, when she looked at me, not through me. She infused the world with her light, before she became a translucent pane of glass through which the light was refracted but never poured forth its precious streams of brightness again … before she paid the price for her husband’s deception.