Atalanta: The dazzling story of the only female Argonaut

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I saw that it pleased her to have a mortal grow up in her image, and I was glad of it, too, even if I didn’t quite understand just how much gratitude I truly owed her. The appeal to the senses, particularly the use of sound, is simply gorgeous so that the reader truly feels part of the story.

Jason’s tragic quest for the Golden Fleece has been re-imagined many times since Irish poet Padraic Colum won the Newbery Medal in 1922 for The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived before Achilles and Robert Graves penned The Golden Fleece (1944).As always Saint brings Ancient Greece to life with deft story-telling and lyrical imagery, but with her third outing we are drawn into a truly empowering story - a novel of strength and resilience, love and friendship, skillfully enthused with the addictive magic of timeless myth. Ariadne was her first novel, Elektra her second, and Atalanta is her latest mesmerising mythological retelling. After thirteen years as a high school English teacher, she wrote ARIADNE which tells the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur from the perspective of Ariadne - the woman who made it happen. As the story progresses Atalanta falls a little out of favour with the Goddess of the Hunt and to try and redeem herself undertakes a quest. Even though I've heard of Jason and the Argonauts, besides the fact that their goal was to obtain the Golden Fleece (thanks, Percy Jackson!

Jennifer Saint is now a full-time author, living in Yorkshire, England, with her husband and two children. At first, I liked it best when they recounted my own—how I’d been left on the mountains and rescued by the mother bear and later by Artemis.In Ovid, Meleager is glad that Atalanta joins the hunt against the rampaging boar causing havoc in his home town and he respects her contribution to the victory the hunters claim against the boar without begrudging her skill and prowess at all.

I do relish the compelling mixture of fact and fantasy in classical stories and Jennifer elucidates this element so elegantly here.

There are just so many great female characters in that pantheon and collection of stories that are only mentioned briefly but who hint at fascinating, untold histories. She doesn’t want to harm another woman; she risks losing her protected status with Artemis; and she jeopardizes her core identity as independent and self-sufficient. There was something significant in her tone, some kind of meaning that passed between her and Phiale as they glanced from each other to Artemis, still blissfully bathing. In her acknowledgements, Saint says she hopes the novel will make readers fall as in love with Atalanta as she did—and her quest has been fulfilled.

In essence, the novel follows the various mythological references of Atalanta’s life, both growing up as a devotee of Artemis after being raised by a bear, her journey as the only female Argo As a grown woman, Atalanta begins to long to test her skills in a human world that she has only ever seen from a distance. She has an incredibly fascinating backstory and I thoroughly enjoyed each time she gave one of the men a run for their money. She remains confident in her abilities and is determined to gain glory for her goddess, not to just prove men wrong, but because it is simple what she desires to do. It was a majestic creature, the antlers spreading wide and tall from its broad forehead, perhaps the most magnificent one I’d seen.

This may result in small marks to the dustjacket and title page, please also bear in mind that each signature will be a little different from the one we show here. We felt it at the same moment, the sudden tingling in the air as though the forest itself was alert with anticipation. Atalanta joins a crew of men and sets out to live a life just as unrestrained as those around her, unwilling to be limited by false chains that others would place upon her based on her sex.