Left to die on a mountainside as an infant by her father, a Greek king who never wanted a daughter, Atalanta is rescued by a bear and raised by the goddess Artemis, who trains her to be a confident and capable warrior and to disdain the company of men. Where Saint’s previous novel, Elektra, was a story about female rage-the tale of three very different women who are equally furious about the ways they’re denied the chance to have agency or voices of their own- Atlanta is a tale about legacy and memory, and the ways that women and women’s successes are often erased and marginalized, even in their own stories. The story of the famous female warrior who journeyed with Jason and his Argonauts on their quest to find the Golden Fleece, Atalanta seems set to introduce an entirely new generation of readers to a woman who’s never really been given her due, historically speaking.

This is part of the reason why author Jennifer Saint’s latest novel, Atalanta, feels like such a breath of fresh air. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily-and I will happily read as many versions of Circe and Clytemnestra as authors want to put in front of me-but it does leave a space for more stories that aren’t, say, about the Trojan War. Jennifer Saint places Atalanta in the pantheon of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology, where she belongs.Although feminist mythological retellings are all the rage in the world of publishing right now, many of them tend to touch on similar themes and stories, often even using the same characters. Can Atalanta carve out her own legendary place in a world of men, while staying true to her heart?įull of joy, passion, and adventure, Atalanta is the story of a woman who refuses to be contained. As she is swept into a passionate affair, in defiance of Artemis's warning, she begins to question the goddess's true intentions. The Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece is filled with impossible challenges, but Atalanta proves herself equal to the men she fights alongside. When Artemis offers her the chance to fight in her name alongside the Argonauts, the fiercest band of warriors the world has ever seen, Atalanta seizes it. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis, Atalanta grows up wild and free, with just one condition: if she marries, Artemis warns, it will be her undoing.Īlthough she loves her beautiful forest home, Atalanta yearns for adventure. When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. From the beloved, bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne, a reimagining of the myth of Atalanta, a fierce huntress raised by bears and the only woman in the world’s most famous band of heroes, the Argonauts

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint