Description

Its a literary gift to see gender expansiveness depicted in an ancient myth with such grace and ease Electric Literature

Fans of Circe and Black Sun prepare to be astonished RO Kwon author of The Incendiaries with this bold and subversive feminist and queer retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros

Young headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town with her tempestuous beauty which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife Secretly she longs for a life away from the expectations of men When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite he follows the orders of the Oracle tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband And yet a monster never arrives

When Eros nonbinary deity of desire sees Psyche she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman Instead Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to a palace hidden from the prying eyes of the gods and outside world There Eros and Psyche fall in love Each night Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness where they both experience untold passion and love But each morning Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe

Before long Psyches nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eross true nature she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them bothand transforms the very heavens in this brilliant and luminous Madeline Miller New York Times bestselling author epic