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No Friend to This House is an extraordinary reimagining of the myth of Medea from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes.
This is what no one tells you, in the songs sung about Jason and the Argo. This part of his quest has been forgotten, by everyone but me ...
Jason and his Argonauts set sail to find the Golden Fleece. The journey is filled with danger, for him and everyone he meets. But if he ever reaches the distant land he seeks, he faces almost certain death.
Medea—priestess, witch, and daughter of a brutal king—has the power to save the life of a stranger. Will she betray her family and her home, and what will she demand in return?
Medea and Jason seize their one chance of a life together, as the gods intend. But their love is steeped in vengeance from the beginning, and no one—not even those closest to them—will be safe.
Based on the classic tragedy by Euripides, this is Medea as you've never seen her before ...
"As in her earlier novels, most recently Stone Blind (2023), classicist Haynes takes a polyphonic, feminist approach to a familiar Greek myth...But how, one wonders, does Haynes address Medea's infamous actions? The gripping conclusion is befitting of this multifaceted character." —Booklist
"An illuminating and often thrilling work of feminist reclamation." —The Guardian (UK)
"[A] wry, witty and ruthless retelling of Euripides' play." —Daily Mail (UK)
"Natalie Haynes is a once-in-a-generation storyteller, and No Friend to This House is her masterpiece. Haynes does not so much retell the myth of Medea as excavate it, layer by devastating layer, for truths both timeless and timely. This is a stunning novel that cuts to the bone." —Dr. Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire
"Haynes' Medea is especially striking – both fearless witch and desperate lover – capturing all the facets and contradictions of the character in the ancient sources ... Another masterpiece from Haynes." ―Costanza Casati, internationally bestselling author of Babylonia and Clytemnestra
This information about No Friend to This House was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: James Betts
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist. Her first novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her previous book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017. Her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, was published in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. It has been translated into multiple languages. Her most recent non-fiction book, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myth was published in Oct 2020, and reached number 2 in the New York Times Bestseller chart. Her novel about Medusa, Stone Blind, was published in Sep 2022 and Margaret Atwood liked it. So did Neil Gaiman. ...
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