This glorious retelling of Medusa will stay with me for a very long time. The writing is stunning, as one might expect with Jessie Burton, and the story feels searingly, heartbreakingly relevant for the world we live in. It's a work of art - Louise O'Neill Utterly transporting ... This dynamic feminist retelling is illustrated with stunning, polychromatic power' - Guardian Books of the Year Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I would have been about 13. God, what a wild, weird story it is – and most of it went over my head. I distinctly remember the chill of Mrs Danvers, and it felt like the first proper grown-up book I’d read. It taught me how people can be strange and secretive. It felt sophisticated but uneasy, like so much of Du Maurier’s work.

a b "Jessie Burton: I never thought of The Miniaturist as ambitious". BBC News. 2 December 2014 . Retrieved 23 December 2014. Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved. This is such a beautiful novel, about family, art, love, loss, grief, damage and renewal. It was given to me when I was 25, as a gift after a performance of a play I was in, and has remained special to me over the years. The glorious illustrations add to the emotion of the story. They are bold and colourful. I’m sure this format is one that would entice younger readers to read (whether mythology or other stories). And this format is also one which I feel would reignite the wonder of more mature readers to revisit these wonderful tales. In the synopsis it is stated that Burton's aim with was to "reclaim Medusa's story" and that is exactly what she did! None who read this can relate to owning sentient hair but many can relate to being punished by society, paying for the mistakes of powerful others, being subjected to the whims of those in authority, and being viewed as one of few accepted binaries. Burton allows us to see and to believe that we contain multitudes, and that we can be the hero of our own story.The entire story was just so tragically beautiful. Medusa was painted as the victim in her own story and not the vengeful killer or the objective to be slain, that she has often been made out to be. She was, instead, viewed here an ordinary girl wishing to live a quiet and solitary existence and with no desires for the power from or notice of the gods. As they spend their days talking, they realise the growing intimacy and the sense of companionship. They discuss many things and seem to be open and revealing about themselves. Although both still hide a secret. What is Perseus’s true mission, and why won’t Medusa give her real name. Could this be love, and will it survive if they tell each other their hidden secrets? If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next?” Jessie Burton is the author of four novels, The Miniaturist , The Muse , The Confession , and The House of Fortune.

Most of Roald Dahl’s books made me want to write. He made it seem easy, to a child, and very fun. Matilda, Charlie, Fantastic Mr Fox, Danny – the stories he wrote for them felt more real to me than life. To believe that about stories is the writer’s curse.If I told you that I'd killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next? I’d imagine that if I said the name Medusa to you, the picture that would immediately spring to mind would be of a wild eyed harridan, with snakes madly circling her head. My name was Medusa, and I was a girl. Perseus had made me sound like a mythical beast. I didn’t want to be a myth. I wanted to be me.”

Rachel Cusk. In my late 30s, when I was wondering whether I would become a mother, I tried and failed to read A Life’s Work . It seemed rather terrifying, but that was actually the critique around it, rather than the work itself. Once I was a mother, I read it in the dark in the small hours, feeding my son. It’s the best, most truthful, helpful and loving book about the madness and wonder of early motherhood I have ever read. But there's also more to Medusa's story than the terrible things she has suffered. In her retelling, Burton takes things a step further, and allows Medusa to grow from a place of loathing the way she looks, her internalised victim blaming, of believing that who she is isn't good enough, and that only through Perseus getting to know her without seeing her, will Perseus ever love her. In this story learns self-acceptance, self-worth, and self-love. That not only is this who she is now, but who she wants to be, snakes and all, and that should be good enough for Perseus, because it's definitely good enough for her. Saturday Lunch with the Brownings , a short story collection by the unmatchable Penelope Mortimer. Sharp, deft, embracing of the darkness and violence in us all, she skewered with such economy the hypocrisies of her age, its misogyny and chauvinism, the claustrophobic options left to women, and the corrosion of the female mind when given nothing to do. A modern, feminist reimaging of a Greek myth. Medusa’s narrative provides an in depth and descriptive account for how Medusa and her sisters came to be cursed as Gorgons by the goddess Athena. Readers discover the motivations behind why Perseus came to the island where Medusa lived and become familiar with a more human side of Medusa as they access her innermost thoughts and feelings.Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal, and destiny itself. Amy Key’s Arrangements in Blue, a unique, intimate memoir about building a beautiful life without prioritising romantic love, or focusing on received ideas of success.