Category: Books

From Heroes to Heroines

Like many readers of my generation, my first encounters with Greek mythology were through the deeds of men.

I grew up enthralled by the adventures of Theseus, Jason, Hercules, Perseus, Achilles and Hector. These were stories of daring quests, impossible challenges, glorious victories and legendary battles. They were tales of courage and strength, and I gloried in their heroics. Around them stood a supporting cast of women I thought I knew well. Circe was the witch. Penelope was the patient wife. Medusa was the monster. Hera was the jealous goddess whose wrath was to be feared.

20260903_0714234952320112069490607

Recently, after watching the latest release of The Odyssey, I found myself revisiting those childhood memories. The film reignited a lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and, like any devoted reader, I immediately reached for Stephen Fry’s Troy and Odyssey. I was ready to immerse myself once again in the familiar stories of heroes and monsters, gods and mortals.

Then a friend and former colleague, Lisa, shared an article from Readings, Feminist Retellings for Fans of The Odyssey. What happened next can only be described as falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.

The article prompted a question that now seems embarrassingly obvious: whose voices had been missing from the stories I thought I knew so well?

The answer, of course, was women’s.

For centuries, the Greek myths that have shaped Western storytelling have largely been told through a male lens. Men embarked on quests, fought wars, outwitted monsters and achieved glory. Women often occupied narrower roles. They were mothers, wives, temptresses, victims or villains. Their stories existed to support the journeys of men.

Once I recognised this, I could not stop reading.

Over the past month I have immersed myself in a remarkable collection of feminist retellings. Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad gave voice to Penelope, allowing her to tell her own story rather than simply waiting silently for Odysseus’ return. Madeline Miller’s Circe transformed the feared sorceress into a complex, intelligent and resilient woman searching for autonomy in a world dominated by gods and men. Clytemnestra by Constanza Casati challenged her murderer title for grief-stricken mother. Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships revealed the Trojan War through the experiences of the women left behind, enslaved or silenced by conflict.

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy were perhaps the most confronting. These novels force readers to see the Trojan War not through the eyes of Achilles or Agamemnon, but through the women treated as spoils of war. The glory celebrated in traditional tellings becomes far more uncomfortable when viewed from the perspective of those who paid its true cost.

From there I moved on to Ayana Gray’s I, Medusa, Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne and Elektra, and currently Daughters of Sparta waits patiently on my bedside table.

Across all of these books, despite their differences in style and interpretation, a common thread emerges.

Women paid for male hubris.

Men sought glory, and women bore the consequences.

Odysseus’ cleverness may have won the war, but Penelope endured decades of uncertainty and isolation. Paris pursued desire, and Troy’s women suffered slavery and loss. Heroes chased immortality through fame, while mothers buried children, daughters were sacrificed, wives were abandoned and innocent women became collateral damage in the pursuit of honour.

Even Medusa, long remembered as a monster, has been reconsidered by contemporary authors. Modern retellings ask us to question who benefits when women are turned into villains and whose perspectives are preserved in the stories we inherit.

What has fascinated me most is not that these authors are rewriting mythology. Rather, they are restoring missing perspectives. The events themselves often remain unchanged. Troy still burns. Odysseus still journeys home. Ancient prophecies still unfold. Yet by shifting the narrative lens, the meaning of the story changes dramatically.

The heroes become more human.

The villains become more complex.

And the women, often relegated to the margins, become fully realised characters whose experiences matter.

As a reader, this has been both exhilarating and unsettling. Exhilarating because these novels breathe fresh life into stories thousands of years old. Unsettling because they force us to confront how easily we accept a single version of events when it is the only version we have been given.

Perhaps that is why these retellings resonate so strongly today. They remind us that every story depends on who is telling it. History, mythology and literature are not simply collections of facts or events. They are narratives shaped by perspective.

A month ago, I revisited Greek mythology seeking nostalgia. I wanted to relive the adventures of the heroes I had loved since childhood.

Instead, I discovered something far richer.

I found the women.

And in doing so, I realised that some of the most compelling stories from ancient Greece were never about the heroes at all. They were about the women who endured, resisted, survived and, finally, are being allowed to speak.

Book review: Circe

I first read Circe when it was released back in 2019, but I am revisiting it years later, armed with a deepening obsession with Greek mythology (and after tumbling headlong down countless mythological rabbit holes). I found myself reading it through an entirely different lens. Previously, the novel read like a tragedy, a demigod, exiled for an unasked-for superpower and unrequited love, now reads as a meditation on agency, power and survival. Miller asks readers to reconsider whose stories have been told, whose voices have been silenced, and what happens when a woman refuses to accept the narrative written for her by others.

20260909_0712496049426434691386637

Of the many mythology retellings currently flooding bookshelves, Circe remains one of the standouts. It is, at its heart, one of the finest stories of a woman reclaiming her power and redefining her place in the world. Circe’s triumph is not found in conquest or revenge, but in her refusal to be constrained by the expectations of gods, men or fate itself. The novel’s enduring appeal lies in this journey of self-determination and redemption. Beautifully written, fiercely intelligent and deeply human, Circe is more than a story about gods and monsters. It is a story about finding one’s voice, claiming one’s identity and forging a future on one’s own terms.

Book review: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood.

Still firmly entrenched in my Greek mythology phase, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad stands out among the many retellings I have read. This brilliant novella blends prose and poetry to create a story that is as provocative as it is entertaining, reminding readers how much of history and mythology exists in the gaps, silences and omissions. Penelope has long been cast as mother, matron and martyr, defined by her loyalty to Odysseus, yet Atwood challenges readers to look beyond the familiar narrative and question who benefits when women’s stories are reduced to waiting and suffering.

20260903_0714587839155598119039899

What makes this retelling so powerful is its relevance to modern womanhood. Atwood draws clear parallels between Penelope’s task of keeping the home fires burning while her husband is away and the reality faced by many women today, who are expected to manage households, build careers, carry emotional labour and often navigate the consequences of male choices. The irony is impossible to miss: while Odysseus earns glory through war and adventure, Penelope shoulders the responsibility of holding an entire kingdom together. Atwood’s prose continually invites readers to connect these ancient expectations with contemporary conversations about gender, responsibility and loneliness.

Equally compelling is Atwood’s treatment of the twelve maidservants executed by Odysseus upon his return. Traditionally little more than a footnote in The Odyssey, Atwood gives these young women a voice and exposes the brutality of their deaths. They are condemned not because of proven guilt, but because of rumour, perception and the narratives imposed upon them by others. Here, Atwood’s recurring theme rings loudest: women so often pay the price for the actions, decisions and failings of men. Their chorus haunts the novella and transforms what might have been a clever retelling into something far more confronting and memorable.

There is also a wry humour running through the novel. Modern readers cannot help but note that if a husband disappeared for twenty years today, most legal systems would simply declare him dead rather than celebrate his prolonged absence as heroic adventure. Yet beneath the humour lies a serious examination of whose stories survive, whose voices are heard and who bears the burden when legends are created.

Intelligent, sharp and deeply thought-provoking, The Penelopiad is one of the finest Greek mythology retellings I have encountered. Atwood demonstrates that the most interesting stories are often found not in the heroic deeds themselves, but in the people left behind to live with their consequences. Recommended for older teens and adults who enjoy mythology, feminist literature and stories that challenge long-held assumptions.

Book review: Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

Ariadne continues my Greek mythology phase, but unfortunately it never quite reaches the heights of Clytemnestra. While Ariadne lends her name to the title, she often feels more like a passenger in the story, with her sister Phaedra emerging as the far more compelling and complex character. At times, it feels as though the novel should have been named after Phaedra instead.

That said, the book offers an engaging retelling of the myths surrounding Theseus and the Minotaur. Reading it transported me back to my own visit to Knossos in Crete, wandering through the ruins of the Minoan palace with its maze-like rooms and winding passageways. Standing there years ago, it was easy to imagine how stories of a labyrinth and a monster at its heart might have emerged.

20260902_1033241639487300182261779

Whilst mythology offers various explanations for why Theseus abandoned Ariadne on Naxos, Jennifer Saint absolutely captures the hero’s arrogance. One can almost see it radiating from the page. This is a man who seems convinced of his own greatness, perhaps viewing himself as the human successor to Hercules, destined for glory and admiration. Saint’s portrayal strips away much of the traditional heroic sheen and reveals a figure whose pride and self-importance often overshadow the people around him.

More importantly, Ariadne continues a theme that Saint explores throughout her mythological retellings: women paying the price for men’s actions. Again and again, Greek mythology tells stories in which male pride, ambition and hubris set tragedy in motion, while women bear the consequences. Just as Medusa is transformed into a Gorgon by Artemis after Poseidon’s violation… or as Scylla monstrous fate because of Glaucus, Ariadne ultimately becomes collateral damage in Dionysus’s war against Argos. Throughout the novel, Saint reminds readers that the destruction wrought by men rarely falls upon men alone. Instead, it is often women who suffer, endure and die because of decisions they never made.

Greek mythology is full of stories where male pride is paid for in female blood. Just ask Hera. Time and again she is forced to bear the consequences of Zeus’s infidelities, directing her wrath not at the god responsible but at the mortal women and children caught in his wake. Saint highlights this recurring pattern across the myths, encouraging readers to look beyond the celebrated deeds of heroes and gods to the women left to clean up the devastation they create.

While Ariadne did not captivate me as completely as Clytemnestra, it remains an enjoyable read for anyone interested in Greek mythology and fresh perspectives on familiar legends. My main takeaway is that Ariadne herself never feels quite as fully realised as her sister Phaedra. However, I will say that Saint succeeds in shining a light on the women who stand in the shadows of heroes and gods, reminding us that their stories deserve to be heard as well.

Book review: Clytemnestra by Constanza Casati.

Clytemnestra is a brilliant retelling of Greek mythology that reclaims one of the most maligned women in Homer’s world. History remembers Clytemnestra as the murderous wife who killed Agamemnon on his return from Troy, yet that version conveniently overlooks the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, and the grief and rage that followed. Costanza Casati transforms a supposedly minor character into a compelling, complex heroine who must fight for power, agency, and survival in a society shaped and controlled by men. Richly written and emotionally charged, this is a story of loss, revenge, resilience, and the cost of being a woman who refuses to remain silent.

20260901_0844274457333702980052551

While not a book for children, Clytemnestra is highly recommended for older teens and adults interested in mythology, historical fiction, and strong female protagonists. The novel contains graphic depictions of violence, both domestic and political, reflecting the brutal realities of the ancient world. Rather than glorifying this violence, Casati uses it to explore the devastating consequences of power, ambition, and vengeance. One of the finest mythological retellings I have read.

Book review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Yesteryear made me ragey, and I mean that as a compliment.

At the centre of the novel is Nattie, a self-proclaimed “trad wife” influencer whose social media presence is built on an idyllic vision of domesticity. Online, she presents herself as a woman living naturally on her organic farm, homeschooling her children, cooking wholesome meals, and embracing traditional family values. She sells custom homewares, champions organic living, and suggests that modern society has lost its way. Nattie’s social media posts glorify the past, or as she calls it, yesteryear.

20260821_1529322780919643695724559

The reality is rather different. Nattie lives on a farm owned not by her, but by her trust-fund husband. The property is tied up entirely in his name through his wealthy father. Her carefully curated social media image conceals pesticides stored in the shed and kitchenware that falls well short of the wholesome aesthetic she promotes. She romanticises a lifestyle that exists largely because of privilege while dismissing anyone, especially the angry women, as she calls those that choose to live differently. Burke deftly skewers the contradictions at the heart of influencer culture. Nattie profits from selling an image rather than a reality, and the novel exposes how easily social media can transform performance into perceived authenticity.

However, the plot suddenly twists when Nattie seems to be suddenly transported back into the real yesteryear pioneer times. Suddenly, the traditional lifestyle she has spent years glamourising ceases to be content and becomes reality. There are no labour-saving devices, no social media sponsorships, and no carefully staged photographs. The work is relentless, exhausting, and often dangerous. More importantly, Nattie is faced with what “traditional values” actually meant for many pioneer women. She does not own property. She cannot vote. She has little legal protection if her husband becomes violent. Her reproductive choices are not her own. The freedoms and protections she has enjoyed in the modern world, while simultaneously criticising why women even need them, disappear overnight for her. There is another plot twist… but I will leave it for you to find. I had to re-read the last few chapters three times to fully absorb it!!

What makes Burke’s Yesteryear so effective is that it refuses to offer an easy caricature. Instead, it asks readers to confront the gulf between romanticised nostalgia and historical reality. The novel challenges the fantasy promoted by some tradwife influencers: that a return to an earlier era would somehow solve modern problems. Burke reminds us that while the past may appear charming through a filtered Instagram reel, it was often profoundly unequal, particularly for women.

Infuriating and surprisingly thought-provoking, Yesteryear is both an entertaining time-slip novel and a sharp critique of influencer culture. It left me frustrated with its protagonist, the trad wife movement,  influencers in general, but also wrathful that so many women today lack equal rights.  This book clearly captures the delusion that so many right wing people advocate fo4.   Yesteryear is a clever and timely reminder that nostalgia is often easiest to sell to people who have never had to live it.

Book Review – John of John by Douglas Stuart

Douglas Stuart’s John of John is not an easy novel to love, but it is impossible to ignore. Set amid the wind-scoured isolation of the Outer Hebrides, Stuart delivers a bleak and unflinching portrait of a father and son trapped not only by poverty and place, but by faith, shame and silence. The novel follows John-Calum MacLeod, known as Cal, an unemployed university graduate summoned home by his father to farewell his dying grandmother. Cal returns reluctantly to an island he had hoped to escape, only to find that the tensions, resentments and secrets that drove him away remain as potent as ever.

20260816_2214157792899122733492067

At its heart, John of John is a story about two men hiding the same truth from one another. Cal conceals his sexuality from his deeply religious father, John, while John harbours his own forbidden desires beneath the mantle of Presbyterian respectability. Stuart builds much of the novel’s emotional tension from this cruel irony: father and son are separated by lies and bitterness while sharing the very secret that might have allowed them to understand each other. Their relationship is fraught, often hostile, shaped by years of disappointment, judgement and emotional repression.

The novel’s portrayal of Free Presbyterian life is particularly powerful. Stuart captures a culture where duty outweighs happiness and where suffering appears almost sanctified. Prayer, hard work and endurance are treated as virtues, while joy feels suspect, even sinful. There is a palpable sense that pleasure is an affront to God, something to be distrusted rather than embraced. The result is a community weighed down by stoicism and self-denial, where affection is rationed and emotional honesty seems impossible. Stuart never caricatures these beliefs, but he shows with painful clarity the damage they inflict on those who cannot conform.

Just as oppressive as faith is the landscape itself. The Hebrides emerge almost as another character in the novel, magnificent yet desolate. Stuart’s descriptions of the islands evoke a place battered by wind, rain and isolation. The stark beauty of the landscape mirrors the emotional lives of its inhabitants: harsh, lonely and resistant to change. The loneliness that permeates the novel is not simply personal but geographical, a product of a community cut off from the wider world and fiercely protective of its traditions.

One of the novel’s quieter strengths lies in its depiction of John’s traditional tweed weaving which sustains many island families and has become a symbol of continuity and cultural survival. Stuart clearly admires the skill and craftsmanship required, yet he is equally aware of its limitations. Weaving keeps traditions alive but offers little economic security. Throughout the novel, poverty hangs over every household. Employment is scarce, opportunities limited, and resignation often replaces ambition. The craft may preserve heritage, but it cannot spare its practitioners from hardship.

This is ultimately a novel saturated with sadness. Unhappiness seems woven into the fabric of daily life, passed down through generations alongside faith and tradition. Yet Stuart’s achievement lies in finding humanity within that bleakness. His characters long for connection even when they lack the language to express it. Beneath the bitterness between John and Cal is a shared yearning to be known and accepted… and dare I say it… a yearning to be loved.

John of John is a sombre, often heartbreaking novel about the cost of living behind masks. It is a story of fathers and sons, faith and desire, and a community where suffering is valued more highly than happiness. Stuart’s vision of the Hebrides is beautiful but unforgiving, and his characters inhabit a world where love is constantly constrained by duty, religion and fear. The result is a powerful and deeply affecting novel that lingers long after the final page.

Historical Fiction: Her-stories are as important as His-stories.

History is often presented as a clean line of dates and deeds, with women’s voices muted or missing. Yet when I read historical fiction, I hear those voices rise. It is in the imagined conversations, the textured inner lives and the careful stitching of research to narrative that women like Eleanor of Aquitaine step out from the margins and take their rightful place at the centre of the story. Historical fiction does not replace the archive. It complements it. It gives shape to the silences and lets Her story speak.

Eleanor of Aquitaine has captivated me for years. She was queen of France, then queen of England, duchess in her own right, patron of culture and mother to kings. Even through the writings of men who often judged powerful women harshly, she still appears intelligent, beautiful, strong of will and frequently labelled as wilful. That tension between what the record says and what it leaves unsaid is exactly where historical fiction does its best work. Through fiction, we can inhabit the rooms where the clerks did not sit, hear the words no chronicler bothered to write, and feel the force of a woman who shaped her world.

20260118_2023522374916063472770158

Because I am fascinated by Eleanor, I have read widely across authors who approach her life from different angles over my last summer holidays. Each one balances fact and imagination to reveal a fuller portrait. In their hands, Eleanor becomes more than a figure on a timeline. She becomes a person, with agency, complexity and heart. Reading these books has reminded me again and again that history is not only his story. It is also her story, and it deserves to be heard.

Why Historical Fiction Lets Her Story Speak

Historical fiction gives us the space to ask human questions that sources do not answer. What did courage feel like to a woman whose decisions could alter a dynasty. How did she manage loyalty and love in a world that traded both for advantage. What language did she use for her ambitions, her fears and her hopes. Novelists use careful research and responsible imagination to explore these questions. They do not invent the past. They interpret it with empathy, so that readers can understand lives very different from our own.

For women, this matters deeply. The written record often reflects the priorities of men who held the pen. Fiction can step into the gaps and consider the private sphere where much of women’s labour and influence took place. It can restore friendships, mentorships, rivalries and choices that formal chronicles overlook. Reading such stories changes how we see the past. It prompts us to look again at the sources, to notice what was omitted and to seek out voices that were ignored.

This is why I keep returning to Eleanor of Aquitaine through fiction as well as history. Each book adds texture to the tapestry. Each author brings a new hue to the same thread. Together they create a portrait that feels whole. In listening to these imagined yet carefully grounded voices, we are not abandoning truth. We are widening it. We are acknowledging that history is a chorus, and that Her story deserves to sing just as clearly.

Her life reminds us that the past belongs to all of us. Reading and sharing these novels is one way to make sure that our understanding of history includes the women who shaped it. His story has been told for a long time. It is time for Her story to be heard alongside it, fully and without apology.

So if you would like to know a bit about Her-Story, here are some of the amazing authors who wrote about Eleanor:

Books by Elizabeth Chadwick featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine
The Summer Queen
The Winter Crown
The Autumn Throne

Books by Jean Plaidy featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine
The Courts of Love
Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Young Queen
Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Rebel Queen

Books by Sharon Penman featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine
When Christ and His Saints Slept
Time and Chance
Devil’s Brood
Lionheart
A King’s Ransom

Books by Alison Weir featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England (non fiction)
Captive Queen (fiction)

Summer of reading.

Last week I went back to work. It was very difficult to swap my afternoon naps for faculty meetings and my long lunches for a quick bite on the go. It was also very difficult to not indulge in my favourite early evening activity of a cocktail with a book.

Like with many people returning to work, the common question was..

“how was your break?” Or “what did you do?”.

Well… at first, I mentioned hanging with my family, visiting friends, travelling for Christmas. But the reality, the actual reality of my holidays was that I read books.

I read a lot of books.

I read every spare moment I had. Between lunch dates, on the bus, in the car, waiting for friends at coffee shops. I even had my book with me on late nights out for my 2.30am bus ride home. I stayed up late and woke up early just to finish my latest novel. At one point, my husband was getting frustrated with my late nights… but to no avail. I needed to read! As Maverick and Goose once said in a quote that I am going to appropriate…

I feel the need, the need to read…

January Reads

As teachers we know it is very hard to read what we want during the term. We are often reading class novels, essays, assignments, emails and meeting notes that should have been emails. I knew, that to fill my bucket of prose, I needed to read till my heart was full before I started the new academic year.

So, over the six weeks of summer holidays I did just that- I read 34 physical books, 4 eBooks and 2 comics. I am still on the mission to finish the rest of the Tintin series over the next few weeks – but for now, this particular book dragon is exceedingly happy.

Crossing Generational Trauma- Wild Swans and Fly Wild Swans.

Women, Memory and Exile: A School Library Reflection

Adding Fly Wild Swans to our school library felt like a natural continuation of a legacy. Wild Swans has long stood as a canonical piece of literature, a book that captures the struggles of three generations of women against the backdrop of China’s political upheavals. In her second publication Fly Wild Swans, Jung Chang turns her gaze inward, reflecting on the cost of telling that story and the way truth can estrange a writer from her homeland. It is a pensive work that reminds us how women across centuries have shouldered familial and societal expectations, carrying memory and resilience even when nations would rather forget.

Jung Chang and her canons of literature

For students, these books are more than history. They are lessons in courage, in the power of memory and in the resilience of women who endured both familial duty and political oppression. Wild Swans explores the tension between tradition and rapid government‑driven progress. What was presented as modernisation often meant the destruction of customs and the breaking of family bonds as the Cultural Revolution tore families apart and demanded loyalty at the expense of tradition. Her story gave voice to three generations of women living through the upheavals of Mao’s China and this new work is written not only of her mother and her homeland, but of the burden of truth itself, and the cost of bearing witness when a nation would rather forget.

Fly Wild Swans reveals the aftermath of telling that truth, showing how a writer can be celebrated abroad yet silenced at home. Jung Chang turns her gaze inward, reflecting on the cost of telling that story and the way truth can estrange a writer from her homeland. Unlike Wild Swans, which focused on her mother and grandmother, this new work is more personal. It explores how writing Wild Swans changed her life, both opening doors in the West and closing them in China. There is a deep melancholy in her reflections on being unable to freely return to her birthplace. The success of Wild Swans brought her recognition abroad but estrangement at home. This tension between belonging and exclusion mirrors the broader story of women in history, who have often been celebrated for their endurance yet denied the freedom to define themselves.

I chose to buy Fly Wild Swans for my school library because it is a book that students should encounter, not only for its historical insight but also for its profound exploration of resilience, identity and the role of women in shaping and surviving history. Adding Fly Wild Swans to our collection ensures that the conversation continues, allowing readers to see how the legacy of truth‑telling reverberates across generations.

By placing both works on our shelves, we invite students to consider how politics, family and identity intersect, and how women across centuries have borne the burden of expectation while still finding ways to endure. These books remind us that literature is not static. It evolves, it questions and it carries forward the weight of generations.