Medea
Women in mythology are often treated as little more than footnotes. Medea flips that notion on its head. She is a woman with power, and men and the gods and goddesses are rarely kind to powerful women. When Jason and the Argonauts arrive in Medea’s home city of Colchis, she betrays her family to ensure he retrieves the golden fleece in exchange for his help to escape her father’s clutches. Her actions are driven not by her own desires but by Jason’s manipulation. Despite the horrific acts she commits, she believes her love for Jason will conquer the odds, and her marriage to him will prove that she’s more than just a witch. However, after they have children, she and Jason decide she must hide her powers and be only a wife and mother. But even as the wife of the famous hero, Medea is never treated well; is hated even, by everyone. Is it not reasonable that she, in turn, treats people with the same hate they’ve bestowed upon her? When her life is upended by a rumour that turns out to be true, Medea falls apart. She summons her powers, and they return, stronger than ever, as she begins to extract revenge on everyone who’s done her wrong.
Medea is a reworking of the Greek tragedy, and Hewlett doesn’t shy away from any of the appalling events that make Medea into a memorable character. In this new telling, Medea’s fate is reshaped, showing a different perspective of a woman wielding her goddess-granted powers. Readers are more than happy to follow her down her dark path, understanding that while she may do evil, she is not evil. Medea is an excellent novel, very much a page-turner.
