Ariadne: The Mesmerising Sunday Times Bestselling Retelling of Ancient Greek Myth

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No doubt she thought I cried for my mother’s shame, but I had a child’s self-absorption and I was worried now for me. Ariadne was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year in 2021 and was Waterstones Book of the month in January 2022. It seems almost that it is used as merely a vessel for getting Ariadne to Naxos, the locale of her other notable appearance in Greek mythology. In one of the most famous Greek myths, Ariadne betrayed her father, King Minos, to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur. 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.

I knew it would take more than the mightiest swarm of bees to sway him an inch, but I was still enchanted by the gift and wore it always. Her punishment, to fall into obsessive love with a bull, resulted in the Minotaur, Ariadne’s half-human, half-bull brother. An ancient story of love and sisterhood reimagined, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne is a truly masterful debut—compulsive, absorbing and lyrical. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.Zeus, the all-powerful and ferocious ruler of the gods, enjoyed strength in mortals and granted his favored Minos the boon of a terrible plague that rolled across Athens in a storm of disease, agony, death, and grief. This quality allows the novel to strike a fine balance: it is both a thoughtful novel of serious ideas and a propulsive intellectual romp. It is pretty much a domestic situation where Ariadne raises a family whilst being involved in a combination of women’s refuge and religious cult. In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne's decision to risk everything for love ensure her happy ending? Years later, 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.

For example, as she offers a detailed depiction of the infancy and development of the Minotaur—Ariadne’s half brother—the monster ceases to be horrifying and instead becomes slightly ridiculous. Minos had always spoken of the marriage I would make one day, a glorious union that would heap honor upon Crete. She picked up the tale after a moment in which I saw the life squeezed from him, his human weakness exposed at last as he submitted, exhausted from trying to keep up with the gods for so long in his mortal frame. There is more telling than showing, and characters launch into soliloquies that might make sense in a Greek tragedy but are out of place here. As you can see, the cover is absolutely stunning and I was really excited to have this book facing out on my bookshelf.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. We’d heard the story of how he had cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, and we thrilled to hear how the snakes that grew from her dreadful head writhed and spat and hissed as Perseus swung his wondrous sword. Either way, he was no match, and Artemis did not intervene to pluck him from the mighty scorpion’s clutches. 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. News of this deed had only recently reached our court, and we’d all marveled over his courage and shivered to imagine his shield, which now bore the Gorgon head and turned all who looked upon it immediately into stone.

Daedalus had been everywhere, it seemed to me, and I hung on his every word when he described the scorching sandy deserts of Egypt and the impossibly distant kingdoms of Illyria and Nubia. 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. One of the difficulties of working with familiar figures and well-known tropes is making them fresh. Praise for Jennifer Saint and ARIADNE: 'Exquisitely written and exceptionally moving, this is a mythical retelling to savour. The book is mostly from Ariadne’s POV, but also features the point of view of Phaedra, Ariadne’s little sister.

My father, Minos, liked to tell me that story of how his unimpeachable moral conduct won him Megara, the subservience of Athens, and the chance to set a shining example of his impeccable judgment. This is an essential book in the new and rising volume of retelling from the women’s point of view – so revealing and questioning. We’ve been reading and writing together as long as we can remember, and we’re excited to share our bookish thoughts with you! In the very early days, my mother, Pasiphae, would dance with me; indeed, it was she who had taught me.