Book Review: An Unexpected Ally by Sophia Kouidou-Giles
Powerful Circe, daughter of the sun-god Helios, is sad to see Odysseus, King of Ithaca, depart from her island, Aeaea—but her heartbreak is eased after dolphins take her to Delos, where she explores a new love relationship.
Circe has a strained relationship with her mother, Perse, but when she finally listens to Perse’s encouragement to seek out the amphibian god Glaucus, she’s glad she’s heeded her advice. Together, the two embark on underwater adventures, and Circe shares with Glaucus her knowledge about the healing and harmful power of herbs. While in Delos, she also meets and befriends Skylla, a local beauty with whom Glaucus is enthralled, although the girl is indifferent.
Circe eventually returns to Aeaea, but one day she learns, upon consulting her scrying mirror, that there is trouble in Delos that requires her immediate action. In the turbulent world of gods mingling with mortals, our heroine shifts shapes, flies, and uses her superpowers to reverse the course of evil.
In a tangle of love, hate, vengeance, and the final righting of wrongs, a cast of irresistible characters weaves an adventure laced with beauty and terror in An Unexpected Ally —a newly woven set of tales that brings to life ancient Greek myths and revives issues familiar to contemporary readers.
Published by She Writes Press
Released October 2023
My Thoughts:I’m not going to spend much time on this one, it was a waste of time to read and the only reason I’m writing a review is to make one particular point: this novel is what you get when a sub-genre takes off, the market just gets saturated with novels about the same themes, characters and topics. That’s what’s currently happening with Greek mythology retellings. Every writer and their dog has a Greek tragedy in them, it would seem.
This one was less of a mythological retelling and more of a fan fiction washout. It was clunky and boring, entire chapters where Circe was just gardening and sewing and thinking about men with nothing at all really happening ever. And when something did happen, it was lame, and not at all like a hard hitting Greek tragedy.
I’ve read quite a few Greek mythology retellings and enjoyed many of them. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker remains the strongest and my favourite, the benchmark standard, if you like. I think too many of them have been written now and going forward I will only read ones written by authors I have already read and enjoyed. That’s about three authors, if my memory serves me right. I prefer my Greek goddesses to have a bit more grit and rage, and to be less concerned with their hair and their outfits. A solid no from me.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
