No Friend to This House - by Natalie Haynes (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A Best Book of the Year from The Observer

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 . . .

Review Quotes

"An illuminating and often thrilling work of feminist reclamation." - The Guardian
"[A] wry, witty and ruthless retelling of Euripides' play." - Daily Mail (UK)
"A stunning, slowburning tale full of passion and vengeance." - Woman & Home (UK)
"The myth of Medea captivatingly retold (complete with the most beautifully foil-tipped pages) will completely reset your commute." - Stylist (UK)
"If there is one thing Natalie Haynes knows how to do, it is reposition the classics. And her latest offering, No Friend to This House, raises the bar even more . . . In the world of Greek tragedy, Medea is often considered one of the most complex and divisive characters. But Haynes' No Friend To This House gives readers more to consider about her." - Press Association

"It's superb: sharp, funny, inventive, powerfully humane...she is one of the most brilliant women in the media." -- The Observer

"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." - 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
"An incredible feat of storytelling, bringing to life all the strands of the divine and human which led to one of the most fascinating myths of all time - Medea." - Martha Kearney
"A passionate and gripping account of a famously dysfunctional family. Haynes balances a fresh take on the material with a deep love for her sources, wearing her scholarship with grace, and giving new voice to the often overlooked but fascinating Jocasta and Ismene." - Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe, on The Children of Jocasta
"Reinterprets two of Sophocles' Theban plays, Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone. . . . the alternating structure proves powerful." - The New Yorker on The Children of Jocasta
"This Gordian knot of incest still has the power to shock, and Haynes is deft with it and with its consequences for the next generation. Her grasp of the ancient city-state is marvelously firm. Her sturdy sentences conjure the punishing Greek summer heat that quells movement and the gold rings bunching the fat on the fingers of florid men." - Kirkus Reviews on The Children of Jocasta
"The legends of Oedipus and his daughter Antigone are told through two interwoven story lines in Haynes's dark, elegant novel . . . . Haynes's greatest achievement is imagining a full world surrounding Sophocles's tragedies, thrusting two minor characters in their respective plays to the forefront and bringing the myths vividly to life. - Publishers Weekly on The Children of Jocasta
"This is a novel firmly grounded in the physical world, as its language--sensuous, graphic, and violent--shouts aloud to the reader. The world-building, too, is marvelous--no one who has passed through the gates of Thebes as described here is likely ever to forget the experience. Highly recommended." - Historical Novel Society on The Children of Jocasta
"Wonderful." - Times (UK) on The Children of Jocasta
"Haynes's fascination with this long vanished world is evident in every line . . . Her Thebes . . . is vividly captured: a place of hard light and sharp shadows, dust, fountains and dry heat." - The Guardian on The Children of Jocasta