Description:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. Reviews Amazon's April Spotlight Pick #1 ALA Library Reads Pick for April NPR's Weekend Edition "Books To Look Forward To In 2018" Goodreads' "23 Big Books of Spring" Esquire's "The 27 Most Anticipated Books of 2018" Boston Globe's "25 books we can't wait to read in 2018" The Millions "The Most Anticipated: The Great 2018 Book Preview" Cosmopolitan's "33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018" Bustle's "The 13 Best Fiction Books Coming Out In April 2018" Amazon.com Review An Amazon Best Book of April 2018: Though revisiting classical myths, Madeline Miller’s bold, poetic new novel, told in the voice of Circe (Odysseus’s lover, famous for turning his sailors into swine), is very much on-trend, with an immortal protagonist and a feminist slant that will make #MeToo-ers cheer. Miller reimagines the story of Circe, “daughter of the sun,” and reinvents her, changing Homer’s ruthless seductress into a woman with a restricted set of godly powers, a keen intelligence, and most important, empathy for humans – a sentiment not shared by her godly relatives. When Circe’s father banishes her to the island of Aiaia, her isolation from her scornful family comes as a gift, and her solitude grants her time to learn the art of witchcraft – the only work she has ever undertaken. “For a hundred generations, I had walked the world, drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease,” she says. “Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.” She summons her skills when a boatload of would-be rapists lands on her shores, but shows Odysseus mercy, and their encounter changes her forever. Back in 2012, Miller’s novel The Song of Achilles earned the Orange Prize for Fiction. For her many admirers, Circe is certainly worth the wait. —Sarah Harrison Smith, Amazon Book Review From School Library Journal Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios, mightiest of the Titans, was a peculiar child who had few of the gifts the demigods enjoyed, and she was despised by her parents and numerous sisters for her deficits. What she lacked in godlike ability, though, she compensated for with a gift for herbology and witchcraft. When she is rejected by her first love, the mortal Glaucos—who pines instead for the beautiful nymph Scylla—Circe casts a spell that turns Scylla into a hideous sea creature. For her transgression, Circe is banished by Zeus to an island, where she survives alone until Odysseus, "son of Laertes, the great traveler, prince of wiles and tricks," lands upon her shores and is seduced by her. Drawing on the mythology of the classical world, Miller deftly weaves episodes of war, treachery, monsters, gods, demigods, heroes, and mortals into her second novel of the ancient world (after the Orange Prize—winning The Song of Achilles). Prometheus and Medea are among those who also make an appearance here. VERDICT This absorbing and atmospheric read will appeal to lovers of Greek mythology.—Jane Henriksen Baird, formerly at Anchorage Public Library, AK "This telling, in the sorceress's own words, is not the version we think we know."―New York Times 'T Magazine' Ambitious in scope, Circe is above all the chronicle of an outsider woman who uses her power and wits to protect herself and the people she loves, ultimately looking within to define herself. Readers will savor the message of standing against a hostile world and forging a new way."―Shelf Awareness "Miller follows her impressive debut (The Song of Achilles) with a spirited novel about Circe's evolution from insignificant nymph to formidable witch best known for turning Odysseus's sailors into swine.... Weaving together Homer's tale with other sources, Miller crafts a classic story of female empowerment. She paints an uncompromising portrait of a superheroine who learns to wield divine power while coming to understand what it means to be mortal."―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "In her stirring follow-up to the Orange Prize-winning The Song of Achilles (2011), Miller beautifully voices the experiences of the legendary sorceress Circe...This immersive blend of literary fiction and mythological fantasy demonstrates that the Greek myths are still very relevant today."―Booklist "Madeline Miller's enthralling second novel may be about a goddess, but it has a lot to say about what it means to be a woman.... Like its heroine, this is a novel to underestimate at your peril."―Bookpage "A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch... [Circe is] a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller's dazzling second novel....Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child....Expect Miller's readership to mushroom like one of Circe's spells. Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters."―Kirkus, Starred Review "An epic spanning thousands of years that's also a keep-you-up-all-night page turner."―Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth "With lyric beauty of language and melancholy evocative of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn", CIRCE asks all the big questions of existence while framing them in the life story of the famous goddess who had the magic of transformations. A veritable Who's Who of the gods of Olympus and the heroes of ancient Greece, Circe knows them all and we see them through her perceptive eyes. This is as close as you will ever come to entering the world of mythology as a participant. Stunning, touching, and unique."―Margaret George, author of The Confessions of Young Nero "Circe bears its own transformative magic, a power enabled by Miller's keen eye for beauty, adventure, and reinvention. Through the charms of a misfit heroine, the world of gods becomes stunningly alive, and the world of our own humanity--its questions, loves, and bonds--is illuminated. This book is an immense gift to anyone who reads to find their own bravery and quest."― Affinity Konar, author of Mischling About the Author Madeline Miller was born in Boston and attended Brown University where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She lives in Narbeth, PA with her husband and two children. The Song of Achilles was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and has been translated into twenty-five languages.

Review

Madeline Miller's Circe is a stunning reclamation of a figure who, in Homer's Odyssey, occupies barely a dozen lines. Miller takes the witch of Aiaia and builds from her an entire life—from an unwanted childhood in the halls of Helios, through exile and solitude, love and motherhood, to a final act of breathtaking self-determination. The novel is written as Circe's own testimony, her voice carrying the weight of millennia yet feeling startlingly intimate, as though confiding across a hearth fire.

The book's greatest achievement is its portrait of power and its costs. Circe is born to divine parents but possesses none of the qualities they value—she is neither beautiful enough to trade in marriage nor powerful enough to command a room. Her discovery of witchcraft, the art of pharmakeia, is born from desperation and love, not from ambition. Miller draws a crucial distinction between the power of the gods, which arrives effortlessly and breeds contempt, and the power of craft, which demands labor, patience, and will. Circe's magic is inseparable from her character: it requires her to pay attention to the world in ways that gods, with their careless immortality, never bother to.

Miller populates Circe's long exile with a remarkable gallery of visitors. Daedalus arrives as a quiet miracle—a mortal whose artistry equals any god's, and whose decency throws divine cruelty into relief. The encounter with Odysseus is among the novel's richest passages: Miller gives us a man who is brilliant and dangerous, charming and ruthless, and Circe sees him with a clarity that neither worship nor hatred could provide. Their year together is warm with genuine intimacy, yet Circe never loses herself in him. She is too wise for that by then, and too lonely not to enjoy what little time allows.

The novel's final act, devoted to Circe's son Telegonus and the arrival of Penelope and Telemachus, deepens the book's meditation on parenthood. Circe discovers that love for a child is its own kind of exile—a walling-off of the self in service of another's safety. The confrontation between mother and son over his desire to leave Aiaia is devastating precisely because both are right: she cannot protect him forever, and he cannot live without risk. Miller handles the tension between divine permanence and mortal fragility with extraordinary tenderness.

Penelope, when she finally appears, is no mere appendage to Odysseus' story. She is Circe's match in cunning and endurance, and the frank exchange between the two women—about power, about what marriage costs, about the gods who use mortals as playthings—ranks among the novel's finest scenes. Telemachus, too, proves unexpectedly moving: a young man who has spent his whole life in his father's enormous shadow and who, when offered Athena's glory, quietly declines. His refusal is the novel's most radical act.

If there is a weakness, it lies in the novel's middle chapters, where the episodic structure—Circe meets a mythological figure, learns a lesson, returns to solitude—occasionally feels formulaic. But Miller's prose, luminous and precise, carries even the more predictable passages with grace. Her sentences have the clarity of spring water: "I stepped into those woods and my life began." "I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands."

At its heart, Circe is a novel about choosing to be mortal—choosing limitation, vulnerability, and change over the sterile perfection of eternity. It is about the courage required to make something with your hands when you could simply wish it into being, and about the deeper courage of loving what you will inevitably lose. Miller has written a feminist epic that never feels like a polemic, a mythological novel that never feels like an exercise. It is a book that burns.

Reviewed 2026-03-26

Notable Quotes

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.

Circe's opening line, reflecting on her identity as a nymph—a word that means both goddess and bride, circumscribing her future from birth. — identity, self-discovery, naming

It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two.

Young Circe observes her father's veiled ambition as he entertains his Titan uncles, learning that the surface peace of the gods' halls conceals the threat of war. — disillusionment, power, appearances

Not every god need be the same.

Prometheus speaks these words to Circe after she brings him nectar during his punishment, planting the seed that she might choose a different path from her divine family. — individuality, defiance, compassion

The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.

After cutting her own palm with a knife and seeing her red blood, Circe has her first moment of self-awareness—realizing she is separate from the world that has shaped her. — self-awareness, identity, agency

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

Circe steels herself to enter the wild forest of Aiaia on her first morning of exile, choosing courage over the comfortable fear she has always known. — freedom, courage, transformation

I stepped into those woods and my life began.

Circe finally enters the forest of her island, marking the true start of her independent existence after millennia of living in others' shadows. — beginnings, independence, nature

Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung.

Circe reflects on the nature of witchcraft as she teaches herself the craft on Aiaia, distinguishing it from the effortless power of the gods. — craft, labor, magic versus power

It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

After surviving the assault by mortal sailors, Circe reflects on the false narratives of feminine fragility. — resilience, gender, survival

He was like ocean tides indeed, I thought. You could look up, and the shore would be gone.

Circe's first impression of Odysseus as they circle each other in her hall, both wary, both calculating—recognizing in him a force as relentless as the sea. — Odysseus, danger, attraction

Those could not still be the only choices.

Circe refuses the false binary that Hermes and the world have offered her—to be either a simpering victim or a monstrous villain—and seeks a third way. — agency, moral complexity, defiance

We bear it as best we can.

Circe echoes Prometheus' words to Daedalus when he asks how she bears the weight of the lives lost to her creations, connecting her present to the compassion she first learned in her uncle's blood. — endurance, guilt, compassion

He would rather be cursed by the gods than be No one.

Telemachus judges his father's fatal flaw—the pride that compelled Odysseus to reveal his name to the cyclops, bringing Poseidon's wrath and years of suffering. — pride, identity, consequences

They do not care if you are good. They barely care if you are wicked. The only thing that makes them listen is power.

Pasiphae delivers a brutal truth about the gods to Circe during their confrontation on Crete, stripping away any illusion that virtue earns divine favor. — power, gods, disillusionment

A golden cage is still a cage.

Circe imagines Daedalus' voice answering her attempts to celebrate the beauty of her island, reminding her that exile is exile however lovely the prison. — exile, freedom, self-deception

You have always trusted too easily.

Aeetes warns Circe as he departs before her exile, a judgment that is both his protection and his own emotional distance made into advice. — trust, vulnerability, sibling bonds

There is no must to the life of a mortal, except death.

The ancient creature Trygon speaks this to Circe at the bottom of the sea when she insists her son must live, stating the fundamental law of mortal existence. — mortality, sacrifice, inevitability

I choose that fate.

Telemachus refuses Athena's offer of empire and eternal fame, choosing obscurity and freedom over divine patronage—an act of quiet, enormous courage. — choice, freedom, defiance of fate

Gods pretend to be parents, but they are children, clapping their hands and shouting for more.

Circe's judgment on Athena's obsessive cultivation of Odysseus, recognizing that the goddess's love was possessive rather than nurturing. — gods, parenthood, possessiveness

I know how lucky I am, stupid with luck, crammed with it, stumbling drunk.

In her imagined mortal future, Circe wakes terrified by the fragility of everything she loves—her husband, her children—yet recognizes the preciousness of what she has chosen. — mortality, gratitude, vulnerability

I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

Circe's final realization before she drinks the transforming potion, inverting the divine hierarchy: immortality is not life but its absence. — mortality, change, immortality as death

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

Circe imagines Telemachus comforting her in the mortal life she is about to choose, finding that the simplest words—it will be all right—contain the deepest truth. — mortality, comfort, presence, love

Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Circe hears a bard's song about her encounter with Odysseus and reflects on how stories erase women's agency. — storytelling, gender, power

How can I live on beneath such a burden of doom?

Circe, imagining her mortal future, confronts the terror of vulnerability—disease, disaster, the fragility of those she loves—and finds the answer in creation and companionship. — mortality, fear, meaning

If you will argue one of the greatest monsters of our age was hiding within her, then you are more of a fool than I thought.

Aeetes challenges Circe's belief that the monstrous Scylla was simply Scylla's true self revealed, forcing her to confront the reality of what her power actually did. — responsibility, self-deception, witchcraft

You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.

The mortal fisherman Glaucos speaks to Circe with a warmth no god has ever shown her, and she feels truly warm for the first time in her immortal life. — love, recognition, mortality

My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea.

Circe's final words before she lifts the transforming bowl to her lips, surrendering her godhood for mortality. — transformation, mortality, choice