October 17, 2022
Shepperson shines in her debut, a plausible revisionist take on Greek mythology that gives voice and agency to Phaedra, a Cretan princess. On Crete, the Athenian prince and mythical hero Theseus manages to elicit the secrets of the island’s labyrinth from Princess Ariadne and kill the feared Minotaur. Phaedra, Ariadne’s younger sister, is horrified; her brother had been born with a deformity but was a gentle soul, not the man-eating beast of legend. Her distress is compounded when she’s given in marriage to Theseus and must start a new life in Athens, where she’s housed in a dirty room and isolated from her new husband. While Theseus seems to have no interest in her, his teenage son Hippolytus, rumored to be the son from Theseus’s rape of an Amazon queen, does, despite his vow of chastity to the goddess Artemis. That leads to another act of violence that Shepperson adds to the traditional telling of the myth, along with a different, but still tragic, resolution. Shepperson’s infusion of psychological depth into mythical archetypes will remind many of Robert Graves’s Hercules, My Shipmate. This inspired feminist retelling will captivate readers. Agent: Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary.
December 15, 2022
A princess is whisked away from home and into a dangerous new world in this reinterpretation of the Greek myth. Phaedra is the younger and plainer princess of Crete. As a teenager, she is witness to the arrival of Theseus and his slaying of her brother, the Minotaur, in the labyrinth. After losing her sister, Ariadne, she becomes Theseus' bride and travels with him to Athens, intent on seeing the gods take revenge on him for the murder of her brother. But Athens is a different world, harsher and filled with men who have no time for the young princess, now queen. Her volatile relationship with her stepson, Hippolytus, who is roughly her age, and her nonexistent relationship with her husband boil over when the worst happens and all of Phaedra's faith is tested. Shepperson has taken an old story and given it new life with her feminist framing. The point of view rotates among major players like Phaedra; her maid, Kandake; and the king's adviser, Trypho, and minor players like Xenethippe, an Athenian peasant; and Helia, a bull leaper. Interjections from the Night Chorus, the unified voice of the women of Athens, set the scene, letting the reader know the truth of what is happening beyond Phaedra's sight. The writing is evocative, crisp, and clear even when dealing with Greek customs, weapons, and traditions. The looming, ever present threat of sexual violence creates tension even in seemingly innocuous scenes, clear even to readers unfamiliar with the original story. This tale was always going to be a tragedy, but telling it almost entirely from the women's points of view makes it both more modern and more eternal, the system of men protecting men never changing. A breath of fresh air from an ancient tale.
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Starred review from November 1, 2022
The half-sister of the legendary Minotaur gets her due in Shepperson's debut. Phaedra is younger than the infamous Ariadne, and she's devastated when Ariadne helps Theseus find and slay the Minotaur, who is not a monster but their disfigured brother. When Ariadne allegedly leaves Theseus for the god Dionysus on the journey back from Crete to Athens, Theseus comes to claim Phaedra as a bride. She agrees, thinking she can get revenge on Theseus for the murder of her brother. But when Phaedra arrives in Athens, she finds Theseus wants little to do with her, and his teenage son, Hippolytus, just a few years younger than Pheadra, is both fixated on and repulsed by her. When Phaedra discovers that Hippolytus' friends are ravaging the women in the castle, she seeks him out in an attempt to put an end to the rampant sexual violence, only to find herself a victim of it when her stepson brutally rapes her. Left pregnant with her rapist's baby, Phaedra decides to fight back. With a pointed examination of the plight of women in ancient Greece, this powerful and compulsively readable tale should appeal to fans of Jennifer Saint's Ariadne (2021) and Madeline Miller's Circe (2018).
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