Meanwhile every petty and useless god would go on sucking down the bright air until the stars went dark.”Ĭirce tells the story of the eponymous goddess of witchcraft, nymph, witch, or enchantress, depending on your source material, daughter of the sun god Helios and the nymph Perse. No matter how vivid they were in life, no matter how brilliant, no matter the wonders they made, they came to dust and smoke. It was their fate, as Prometheus had told me, the story that they all shared. “Every moment mortals died, by shipwreck and sword, by wild beasts and wild men, by illness, neglect and age. Breathing life into the ancient world, Madeline Miller weaves an intoxicating tale of gods and heroes, magic and monsters, survival and transformation.” ( Synopsis from the publisher) To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home. There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe’s independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. But she will not always be alone many are destined to pass through Circe’s place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. “In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born.

Circe genre