Saturday Lunch with the Brownings , a short story collection by the unmatchable Penelope Mortimer. Sharp, deft, embracing of the darkness and violence in us all, she skewered with such economy the hypocrisies of her age, its misogyny and chauvinism, the claustrophobic options left to women, and the corrosion of the female mind when given nothing to do. One that made me think was the message to not over promise, because Medusa had promised many things that she did not have the power to control, and in doing so entrapped herself and sealed her own destiny. But there's also more to Medusa's story than the terrible things she has suffered. In her retelling, Burton takes things a step further, and allows Medusa to grow from a place of loathing the way she looks, her internalised victim blaming, of believing that who she is isn't good enough, and that only through Perseus getting to know her without seeing her, will Perseus ever love her. In this story learns self-acceptance, self-worth, and self-love. That not only is this who she is now, but who she wants to be, snakes and all, and that should be good enough for Perseus, because it's definitely good enough for her. It is a bold undertaking, to take one of the Greek myths and re-tell it for the modern age, but Burton does so with clarity and gusto. She hones in on two characters: that of Perseus, who has been tasked by Zeus to slay the monster Medusa, by cutting off her head, and Medusa herself – condemned to live on a deserted island, in a curse by the vengeful goddess Athena, following Medusa’s seduction by the sea god Poseidon, amidst the hallowed columns of Athena’s virgin temple. As a spiteful addendum, Athena turns Medusa’s beautiful long dark hair into a ring of live snakes, thus issuing a life sentence of isolation and despair. If I told you that I'd killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next?

This retelling was YA but it’s not without dark and difficult themes. I have placed some trigger warnings at the bottom of this review. While this was a Medusa tale with some familiarity, it really portrayed her perspective, what life was like for her. I particularly thought for the first time what life would be like with snakes on your head, the loss of her hair and how that affected her with the same hopes and desires as any young woman. Her narrative alongside Perseus’ was bittersweet and yet still something to delight in.What is relatively new is the way in which female mythological characters are now being placed at the centre of narratives in which they’ve traditionally been peripheral. Taking her lead from the likes of Pat Barker and Madeline Miller, Higgins’s Greek Myths: A New Retelling is narrated by female characters. Or rather, it’s woven by female characters, because to give voice to this very 21st-century impulse, she uses a classical literary convention known as ekphrasis, or the telling of tales through descriptions of striking works of art – in this case, tapestries. Medusa was a fourteen-year-old girl who had drawn the attention of Poseidon and Athena for the wrong reasons. Stalked by Poseidon she is sexually abused by him in Athena’s temple but far from sympathy you would expect from Athena, instead the goddess turns her beautiful hair to a mass of venomous snakes with a promise “woe betide any man fool enough to look upon you now”. Also, most of the book is told in conversation format. So a lot of the significant events in Medusa’s mythos don’t actually *happen* in this book - Medusa just talks about when they happened. It was an interesting stylistic choice, and perhaps it works for some, but not for me - it made me a little bored, to be honest. (Very literal example of someone TELLING and not SHOWING).

I marvelled that we could fall for each other without meeting face to face, that the mortal mind was capable of such gymnastics when it wanted.” Who are you?’ I called down. I spoke in panic, worried that Argentus’ suspicion of this new arrival would drive him to his boat at any moment. And I spoke in hope: it felt of utmost importance that this boy should stay on my island – for a day, a week, a month. Maybe longer.” Gives the serpent-headed monster of myth a powerful and haunting humanity' - Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne and Elektra They promise to tell each other their story. Medusa, what she now is, and how she became this way, and Perseus why he is truly on the island. It seems he has not just washed up randomly at all. King Polydectes has charged Perseus with the task of cutting of Medusa’s head.I’d been looking forward to this retelling of Medusa’s tale since it was announced and thankfully, Jessie Burton didn’t let me down. I’d never read any of her previous books before, and I’m so very glad that I finally did. I had a grand time reading this. Filled with glorious full-colour illustrations by award-winning Olivia Lomenech Gill, this astonishing retelling of Greek myth is perfect for readers of Circe and The Silence of the Girls. Illuminating the girl behind the legend, it brings alive Medusa for a new generation. About This Edition ISBN: This is a hard review to write, folks, as I had really high hopes - but unfortunately, they were pretty thoroughly dashed. My name was Medusa, and I was a girl. Perseus had made me sound like a mythical beast. I didn’t want to be a myth. I wanted to be me.” The book is a sensitive view of Medusa that we don’t usually have the opportunity to consider. Her fate designated at the hands of a God and Goddess feels cruel, how through no fault of her own has she been so horribly damned. As the story progresses, her sense of worth and hope grows. Perhaps she has overimagined or misunderstood Athena’s curse – “Woe betide any man fool enough to look upon you now!” Perhaps Perseus can help!