CIRCE BY MADELEINE MILLER

Fantasy is almost as old as humankind's ability to speak. The books we read today come long after the first tales about gods, demons, heroes and mythical beats told by primitive man around the fires they lit at night to ward against the cold and dark, and to keep the wild beasts at bay.  Some of the first to be written down come from ancient Greece. Tales of Zeus and Olympus are still told today. And of course we were all reminded of those stories by the recent excellent film Odysseus by Christopher Nolan. One of the deities in that epic was the witch, Circe. And no one in recent times has told her story better than Madeleine Miller. Her book by that name brings the whole pantheon of Greek gods to life. And none more so than the witch herself.

And I've now got hold of the first pre-launch copy of my new book, Renn, the first in a trilogy based on ancient Chinese history and mythology. On one level, Renn can be seen as a Grimdark Romantasy (A princess abandoned by her lover and sold to a brothel who must seduce a foreign king to gain her freedom and wreak vengeance on those who wronged her) On another level it can be read as an epic fantasy. (The story of a warrior who helps his king build an empire and then becomes willing to tear it apart to rescue the woman he loves.) Next week I will give details of how to pre order a copy. In the meantime I here’s a picture of the cover