This was excellent. A mythological, feminist retelling centred around a side character of The Odyssey, it puts forward, among other things, an alternate interpretation of Odysseus. I mean yes, he's a hero who lives by his wits, but he uses those wits to do some pretty terrible things, and it's no surprise really that the man who comes home to his long-suffering family isn't someone they really want around. But as much as I'm leading with him, Odysseus is really only a side character himself here. The primary focus is the nymph Circe, a divine and eternal figure who's extremely low down the godly hierarchy, and is used by pretty much every other divinity as some sort of kicking ball. It can get a little frustrating, how she falls over and over again for the idea that they've got any skerrick of interest in her other than what she can do to further their own ends, but the fact that she's frustrated with herself over this failing gives a self-awareness to the narrative which is perhaps its strongest point - knowing your flaws doesn't automatically fix them, after all. And Circe's fundamental realisation of her own helplessness - underlined by a really unnecessary rape scene which knocks this down from five stars for me - is the impetus for her deciding to go in another direction.

I'm not sure how much of what happens here is actually mythological, and what's made up out of whole cloth. I believe that, in the mythology, Circe had three sons, but Miller sensibly reduces them to one, which is I think a good choice as he borders on irritating. But the mix of fact and fiction (or should I say fiction and fiction) still works really well. I gobbled this down in one sitting, it was so entertaining and smooth to read. Both Circe-the-character and Telemachus were particularly well drawn. Highly recommended.