Reading Circe is like attending a master class in crafting the perfect narrative. If ever a novel engaged me so thoroughly in recent years, it was this one by Madeleine Miller, a compelling tour de force. Profoundly trained in the classics, Miller has written a delicious, thrilling novel that reveals her intimacy with Greek mythology and a passion for its inhabitants. I read it in one sitting, so immersed in its flow that when my husband interrupted my reading I truly was startled and for an instant had to pull myself out of Miller’s fictional Aegean. Were I not so involved in my own writing and in my study of Romance Languages, I’d take up Latin again and try to learn classical Greek, just to feel closer to the protagonist of this tale.

And what a tale–an imagining of what brought Circe to her island and what happened to her after her dalliance with Odysseus. Great language, great style. I recommend this work to anyone craving a good story, especially in the context of antiquity.