Greek Mythology: 5 Must-Read Retellings and 5 that are still on my TBR

Hello everyone. In this post, I am going to talk about Greek mythology retellings. This genre became very popular after the publication of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller in 2011. Another well-known retelling of The Iliad is A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. The books I will talk about here though are not just retellings of Homer’s epic poem. This list includes books that recreate any Greek myth. When relevant, I will also include an author’s other published works on the topic.

My personal 5 Must-Reads for Greek Mythology retellings include:

1. Circe by Madeline Miller

“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.” In The Odyssey, Circe appears in one book of the poem but that was enough for her to make her mark in Western literature. However, she has been severely maligned by history and those that wrote it; like most women, she has not been given a chance to tell her own story. This is her story. “When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist.” Read my full review for this book here.

2. Women of Troy Trilogy by Pat Barker

This trilogy is a retelling of The Iliad and it focuses solely on the women; on their lives as prizes of war and slaves of the men who killed their families and burned down their cities. The narrator is Briseis, the once-queen of Lyrnessus, one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms. That is, until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Now she is his concubine and his slave. She is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in the war between Trojans and Achaeans; women who are now slaves, prostitutes, nurses, and those who lay out the dead. But all of them erased by history.

Of all the retellings of The Iliad that I have read, including The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, this is my favorite. And now that the third book is out, I will definitely pick it up again.

3. Alcestis by Katharine Beutner

Alcestis is the personification of the devoted and selfless woman in ancient Greece. She is also the perfect wife. After angering the gods, Admetus, Alcestis’ husband, is granted a reprieve from death only if someone else would die for him. So Alcestis sacrifices herself and dies in his place. Her willingness to do so demonstrates her profound love and loyalty. Admetus, on the other hand, represents the human desire to avoid death. Ultimately, Heracles, after wrestling with death, brings Alcestis back from the underworld. But what happens to Alcestis in the underworld during the three days that she was there? Read Katharine Beutner’s book to find out. I highly recommend it.

4. Elektra by Jennifer Saint

“This tomb is like everywhere I have known for ten years: devoid of my father, bereft of solace.” In Greek mythology, Elektra is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. She is devoted to her father and never forgives her mother for killing him after he returns to Mycenae after the fall of Troy. In this book, Jennifer Saint retells several myths to weave the story of Elektra’s life. Elektra’s life, however, is keenly linked to that of her sister Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon sacrifices to the Gods before sailing to Troy, to her mother, Clytemnestra, whose sole purpose in life after Aulis, is to avenge her daughter’s death but who forgets that she has three other living children, and to Cassandra, the Trojan princess and prophetess whom Agamemnon captures after the Fall of Troy. Jennifer Saint’s books tell the story of less known women in Greek mythology, and I think she does a superb job in this one. I will be reading her most recent book Hera pretty soon.

5. Lovely War by Julie Berry

This book is a retelling of the Greek myth of Aphrodite’s trial when Hephaestus, her husband and god of fire and the smithy, finds her and her lover Ares, the god of war, making love and ensnares them in an unbreakable chain-link to drag them in shame to Mount Olympus for retribution in front of all the other gods. In this book, however, Aphrodite convinces her husband to judge her and Ares in the hotel room where he found them, and sets out to explain why, as the goddess of love, she can never experience love as humans do. At the end of the book, we realize that it was not Aphrodite on trial all along, but Hephaestus, and this gives the myth a nice alternative finale.

The 5 Retellings of Greek Mythology that are still on my TBR are:

1. The Song of the Kings by Barry Unsworth and House of Names by Colm Tóibín

“Troy meant one thing only to the men gathered here, as it did to their commanders. Troy was a dream of wealth; and if the wind continued the dream would crumble.” This book is a retelling of the myth of Iphigenia. However, this retelling focuses more on the politics that brought the alliance of the Greek States together. At the beginning of the novel, this alliance is already threatening to break apart and withdraw due to a strong wind that preventing the ships to set sail to Troy. Stranded at Aulis, the feelings of frustration and impotence of the kings of Greece quickly turns into the desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman whose sacrifice will appease the gods.

House of Names is a retelling of the death of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra’s quest for revenge for the death of her daughter, and Electra’s hatred towards Clytemnestra for killing her father, Agamemnon. The myths about the House of Atreus are popular in modern retellings and this one was written by an author I’ve never read before, so I am curious.

2. Clytemnestra by Constanza Casati

Clytemnestra, Helen, and Penelope are the most prominent female figures in Greek mythology. Clytemnestra is known for killing her husband, Helen for being the most beautiful woman in the world and for being abducted by Paris, an act that caused the Trojan War, and Penelope is the epitome of the faithful wife but she is also just as cunning as her calculating husband. I really enjoyed how Jennifer Saint wrote Clytemnestra in her novel Elektra, and I want to see how Constanza Casati does that in her eponymous novel.

3. Homeric Chronicles by Janell Rhiannon

“Sing, Muse, sing their song of sacrifice…” This is how this series begins; a retelling of The Iliad and every myth related it in some way. It is retelling of the Trojan War focusing on the stories of six women, both queens and goddesses, whose song of sacrifice, the title of the first volume, allowed the men in their lives to become myth. I look forward to reading this series. There is a fourth volume available now on Kindle.

4. Troy by David Gemmell

This trilogy is a retelling of The Iliad from the point of view of the Trojans, specifically Aeneas. I have heard really good things about this author and I’m curious about his writing. I will pick this one up soon.

5. For The Most Beautiful: A Novel of the Woman of Troy by Emily Hauser

This is the story of Krisayis, the daughter of the Trojan’s High Priest, and Briseis, the princess of Pedasus who later becomes Achilles’ slave. These two are the most prominent women in The Iliad. Both of them are captives, but they are not the same. Krisayis is exceptional because she is guarded by Apollo, but women who do not have divine protection usually become slaves for the rest of their lives after being captured in war. And this is Briseis’ fate.

That is everything for today. I hope that one of these has roused your interest, and see you soon.