If you haven’t read either of Madeline Miller’s Greek re-imaginings, Song of Achilles or Circe, do. Both are rooted in canonical mythology but are imbued with Miller’s own beautiful and contemporary style, Circe retains the Grecian grandeur of its source material but is absolutely Miller’s own. Her first novel, Song of Achilles, which was awarded the Orange Prize (now known as the Women’s Prize for Fiction, one of the UK’s most prestigious literary accolades), is a reworking of The Iliad from the perspective of Patroclus. From the brutalism of the decade-long Trojan War, Miller produced an unimaginably tender love story. Her extensive knowledge of Greek culture and history saturated the fictitious tale with richness and realism. She brought the emotional connection of two young men (Achilles and Patroclus) to the forefront of the story, her backdrop being an epic conflict over the sexual dominion of Helen, the world’s most beautiful woman. Miller’s subtlety when playing with gender, power and sexuality makes her ancient stories modern: both of her novels are best-sellers, but also works of great literary skill.

Miller’s retelling of The Odyssey, which has a great male warrior at its core, is more than just a feminist transformation of Homer’s masterpiece – in and of itself, it is a work of female art.  Circe follows the eponymous goddess as she grows from a young girl into a woman. She is a daughter of the Sun (the Titan, Helios) but is not classically beautiful like the naiads which surround her, resulting in a childhood of neglect and insult. Travelling through centuries of Greek mythology, her story is told by Miller as an epic bildungsroman. Circe is exposed to romantic love for the first time with a mortal, Glaucos. When she uses what she believes to be a magical flower on him, she sets herself on a path that eventually leads to her exile to the island of Aiaia, made famous in The Odyssey. Before her banishment, her brother Aeëtes reveals that she and her siblings are pharmakeia – witches. It is in this seclusion that we see Circe thrive.

The men of Circe’s life are never constant, her brother abandons her for glory, her first love dismisses her, her father overlooks her and her travelling lover becomes restless in the sanctuary of Aiaia. (If this is a spoiler, I’m sorry, but The Odyssey has been out for over two thousand years now!) Circe raises her son alone. When his father leaves for his own kingdom, she fights off the wrath of Athena – who seeks the child’s death – alone.All that lasts of her affair with Daedalus, a mortal, is the loom he crafted for her. Even her casual sexual encounters with Hermes are brief, dictated by his desire to be entertained. Men are transitory in this novel. Circe carves her own narrative path, one which deeply immerses the reader.

The first group of sailors who come to Circe’s island embody the violent masculine practices that were central to warfare in Ancient Greece; after discovering there are no other men on the island, they viciously attack Circe. Her throat is struck before she is able to say the spell-word to inoculate the drugged men. Not only is this act of silencing blatantly metaphorical, but by denying Circe her voice she is made physically vulnerable. When she regains her strength, and her voice, she inflicts her wrath in a ruthlessly poetic fashion.

Miller did not write Circe as a lily-white female lead: she is out of balance with the perfect, divine world she was born into. Circe is impulsive, cunning and powerful, from a young age learning she couldn’t rely on those around her. This story is anchored to a strong female figure who slips away from any sexist or archetypal ideas of a witch: those that come to Aiaia seek her help, refuge or, sometimes, things more sinister. Despite being branded as unremarkable from birth, she is transformed, casting herself into a sea of many other stories – Daedalus, the Minotaur and Scylla, the sea monster, to name a few – and seems to bind both age-old mythology and destiny to her own will.

Miller’s writing style is essential to the novel’s tone, which seems effortlessly ethereal. Her prose often reads like verse. The early dialogue between Circe and the nymphs who antagonize her is even given its own cruel beauty, such as when Circe innocently compares her eyes to those of her mother, the beautiful naiad Perse. Her mother responds to her daughter, saying “How sweet! No, darling, ours are bright as fire, our hair like sun on water.” Another chimes in, saying Circe is smart to hide her ugly hair, though it is a shame she cannot hide her voice. From a young age, Circe is simultaneously exposed to and expelled from the beauty of the nymphs, propelling her character from one exile to another.

The style of Circe is alluring. We understand that this girl – whose name means Hawk – is an outcast from her oceanic relatives and far too loving to match the fiery tyranny of her father. Circe is from neither world; she is self-contained. After turning her first crew into swine, she reflects on their new, self-loathing forms and declares: “The truth is, men make terrible pigs.” It is a stand-alone line, encapsulating her own experience with arrogant and domineering men who have thus far controlled her life. In this line she shows an understanding that she is now able to transform them, that she controls men and they no longer control her. Their own hubris and arrogance, which convinced them that they could overpower this isolated woman, now forces them to confront their “terrible” forms; it is a masterful subversion.

Circe is an enticing novel, it is an introspective epic, tied to the emotional journey of a woman. Mortality and divinity are constantly interacting, the mind and mythology are frequently at play. Womanhood and witchcraft are inextricable for Circe, which makes her story equally powerful and magical.