“At once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and a startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist.…A book I could not put down.”
—Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth
“Mary Renault lives again! A ravishingly vivid and convincing version of one of the most legendary love stories.”
—Emma Donoghue, author of Room
“I loved it.”
—J.K. Rowling
“Fast, true, and incredibly rewarding.…A remarkable achievement.”
—USA Today
“Wildly romantic and surprisingly suspenseful.”
—Mary Pols, Time
“Beautifully done.…In prose as clean and spare as the driving poetry of Homer, Miller captures the intensity and devotion of adolescent friendship and lets us believe in these long-dead boys…deepening and enriching a tale that has been told for three thousand years.”
—Mary Doria Russell, Washington Post
“Captivating.…It’s a hard book to put down, and any classicist will be enthralled by her characterization of the goddess Thetis, which carries the true savagery and chill of antiquity.”
—Donna Tartt, The Times (UK)
“Powerful, inventive, passionate, and beautifully written.”
—Boston Globe
“One of [the year’s] most exciting debuts.…Seductive, hugely entertaining.”
—Vogue
“Spellbinding.…A timeless love story.”
—Liza Nelson, O, The Oprah Magazine
“Miller’s prose is more poetic than almost any translation of Homer.…This is a deeply affecting version of the Achilles story: a fully three-dimensional man—a son, a father, a husband and lover—now exists where a superhero previously stood and fought.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“Brilliant.…Rewriting the Western world’s first and greatest war novel is an awesome task to undertake. That Miller did it with such grace, style, and suspense is astonishing.”
—Dallas Morning News
“One of the best novelistic adaptations of Homer in recent memory, and it offers a strikingly well-rounded and compassionate portrait of Achilles.…Miller injects a newfound sense of suspense into a story with an ending that has already been determined.”
—Wall Street Journal
“Miller somehow (and breathtakingly so) mixes high-action commercial plotting with writing of such beautiful delicacy you sometimes have to stop and stare.”
—The Independent (UK)
“Masterfully brings to life an imaginative yet informed vision of ancient Greece featuring divinely human gods and larger-than-life mortals. She breaks new ground retelling one of the world’s oldest stories about men in love and war and extraordinary women.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review), Pick of the Week
“Extraordinary.…Beautifully descriptive and heart-achingly lyrical, this is a love story as sensitive and intuitive as any you will find.”
—Daily Mail (UK)
“A masterly vision of the drama, valor, and tragedy of the Trojan War. Readers who loved Mary Renault’s epic novels will be thrilled with Miller’s portrayal of ancient Greece. This reviewer can’t wait to see what she writes next.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“This is a beautiful book.”
—Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey
“Reading this book recalled for me the breathless sense of the ancient-yet-present that I felt when I first fell in love with the classics.”
—Catherine Conybeare, professor of classics, Bryn Mawr College