Wearing the Lion
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
"This novel effortlessly ascends to the heights of Mount Olympus. Tough and tender and bittersweet. Wearing the Lion establishes Wiswell firmly on the new fantasy landscape." —T. Kingfisher, Hugo Award-winning author of Nettle & Bone
"Wiswell makes something new and thrilling—and funny and wrenching and tender—out of a very old myth." —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love
Nebula Award-winning author of Someone You Can Build a Nest In John Wiswell brings a humanizing and humorous touch to the Hercules story, forever changing the way we understand the man behind the myth—and the goddess reluctantly bound to him
Sometimes a goddess's worst enemy is her biggest fan.
Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to the goddess Hera. If only he knew that his very face is an insult to her...as he is yet another child that Hera’s dipshit husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.
“Auntie Hera” loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion, until she snaps and causes an unspeakably tragic accident: the death of Heracles' children. Plunged into grief and desperate for revenge, Heracles is determined to find the god that did this.
Wracked with guilt and desperate to save face, Hera distracts Heracles with monster-slaying quests, only to find that he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, bonds with the Lernaean hydra, and heeds the Ceryneian hind.
Each challenge adds a new monster to Heracles' newfound family. A family that just might lay siege to Mount Olympos.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nebula Award winner Wiswell (Someone You Can Build a Nest In) puts a fresh spin on the labors of Hercules in this inventive and irreverent novel. Hera is fed up with her husband Zeus's infidelity, the latest reminder of which is his new half-mortal son, Heracles. Down in the mortal realm, however, Heracles grows up worshipping Hera, affectionately referring to her as Auntie. There comes a day when Hera just can't take "hear that little shit praying" anymore and, in a fit of rage, she accidentally causes the deaths of Heracles's children. Bereft and traumatized, Heracles begs Hera to tell him which god is responsible for the tragedy. Desperate to escape the consequences of her actions, Hera promises to reveal the culprit only after Heracles has bested a series of monsters. In no mood for more violence, however, Heracles ends up befriending the hydra, the Nemean lion, and others, amassing enough monstrous allies that, when the truth inevitably comes to light, he may have the force to take on Olympus itself. Wiswell alternates between Hera's and Heracles's perspectives, painting distinctly modern portraits of both. The result is a Greek mythology retelling that stands out from the crowd through its sheer sense of fun.
