Ariadne: The Mesmerising Sunday Times Bestselling Retelling of Ancient Greek Myth

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None of the men in the story would be considered role models with the possible exception of Daedalus. In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne's decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? There is also no actual character development, the men get worse and the women remain helpless, clueless. She eloped with Theseus after he killed the Minotaur, yet according to Homer in the Odyssey "he had no joy of her, for ere that, Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness of Dionysus".

Jennifer Saint brings these characters to life on the page in a way that is nuanced and heart-breaking. Ariadne says of her sons, "They have gone on to lead quiet, unremarkable lives—the greatest gift that they could have been given. Even though Ariadne does indeed become the wife of Dionysus and have children with him, the dynamic of their relationship doesn’t make any sense either. At the observation in her honour on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, a young man lay on the ground and vicariously experienced the throes of labour. When the Greek hero Theseus arrives with a collection of Athenians to be sacrificed to the Minotaur Ariadne becomes infatuated.In keeping with the office of Minos as King of Crete, Ariadne came to bear the late title of "Princess". Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.

Far from giving her escape from her cruel fate, she was immediately set upon in an endless chase by the crimson-streaked eagle bent upon eternal vengeance. The culmination of this rationalization is the realistic historicizing fiction of Mary Renault, The Bull from the Sea (1962).Conversely, Stylianos Alexiou has argued that despite the belief being that Ariadne's name is of Indo-European origin, it is actually pre-Greek. When she is faced with the terrible atrocities happening under King Minos, will she have the courage to do the right thing and finally accept her destiny? In my debut novel Pandora I wanted to explore female agency and the complexities of human nature, all through the richness of a Georgian lens using the myth of Pandora’s box as an anchor.