If you liked
Books like Circe
by Madeline Miller
Circe hands a minor witch from the Odyssey her own life, her own centuries, and her own reckoning with gods and men who underestimated her. Madeline Miller writes myth with a modern interior voice and it turned a footnote into a bestseller. If you want more of that, here are the reads.
The shortlist
What to read next
The Song of Achillesby Madeline Miller
“The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 2011 review. The Trojan War retold from Patroclus's perspective, written by a classicist with the patience the source material deserves. The novel that defined the contemporary feminist mythic re-telling subgenre and rebuilt Miller's audience for Circe.”
The Women of Troyby Pat Barker
“The Women of Troy by Pat Barker 2021 review. Briseis narrates the days after the fall of Troy as the Greeks wait for favorable winds. Barker's sequel to The Silence of the Girls.”
The Marriage Portraitby Maggie O'Farrell
“The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell 2022 review. Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici recognizes that her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, intends to kill her. O'Farrell's Hamnet follow-up.”
Hamnetby Maggie O'Farrell
“Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 2020 review. The death of William Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son and the four years before Hamlet is written. The Women's Prize winning novel about marriage, grief, and the play that came out of it.”
The Priory of the Orange Treeby Samantha Shannon
“The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 2019 review. A standalone epic fantasy across four kingdoms preparing for the return of a banished ancient dragon. Canonical contemporary literary epic fantasy.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRueby V. E. Schwab
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab 2020 review. A young Frenchwoman in 1714 trades her future for immortality and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. V. E. Schwab's standalone literary fantasy.”
FAQ
Common questions about Circe read-alikes
- I want the other Madeline Miller.
- The Song of Achilles is her debut and her only other novel, retelling the Iliad through the love between Achilles and Patroclus. It won the Women's Prize and is the more romantic, more devastating of the two. Read it next, no question.
- I want more myth told from the women's side.
- The Women of Troy by Pat Barker gives the fall of Troy to its captive women, colder and angrier than Miller. It is the sharpest feminist-retelling match in the catalog.
- I want a woman written back into a history that ignored her.
- The Marriage Portrait and Hamnet, both by Maggie O'Farrell, take real Renaissance women and give them the interior lives the record denied. Different era, same project as Circe.
- I want the immortal-woman-across-centuries feeling.
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a cursed woman across three hundred years, and The Priory of the Orange Tree offers epic fantasy led by women. Both carry Circe's long solitude and slow-built power in a different key.
The original