Bestselling author Natalie Haynes returns to the world of
Greek myth she so wittily explored in Pandora’s Jar and turns
her focus on Olympus itself – not on the gods, who have had
far more attention than they deserve over the millennia since
these stories were first told, but on the goddesses.
Here we meet Athene, who sprang fully formed from her
father’s brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process),
goddess of war, guardian of the city named for her and
sacred to her, and provider of wise counsel. Here, too, is
Aphrodite, born of the foam (or, some sources say, sperm
released from a castrated Titan’s testicles), the most
beautiful of all the Olympian goddesses, dispensing desire and
inspiring longing – but with a nasty line in brutal punishment
of those who displeased her. And then there is Hera, Zeus’s
long-suffering wife, whose jealousy of his repeated dalliances
with mortals, with nymphs, with other goddesses, led her to
wreak elaborate and often painful revenge on those she felt
had wronged her. Well, wouldn’t you?
We also meet Demeter, goddess of the harvest and mother
of the hapless Persephone; Artemis, the huntress, virgin
goddess of childbirth (Greek myth is full of confusion); the
Muses, all nine of them; wide-bosomed Gaia, the earth
goddess; and Hestia, goddess of domesticity but also of
sacrificial fire.


Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, The Children of Jocasta, A Thousand Ships, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, and Stone Blind. Her non-fiction book about women in Greek Myth, Pandora’s Jar, was a bestseller in both the UK and the US. She has written and performed eight series of her BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015 she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience.