Medusa: Greek Goddesses Collection, #1

By Lauren Goffigan

For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe comes a mesmerizing retelling of the myth of Medusa...

Medusa, the beautiful daughter of two sea gods and granddaughter of Gaia herself, longs to see the world beyond her father's underwater palace.

But when her entanglement with the mortal world puts her in the path of powerful Olympian gods, she is cursed and forced to live a life of exile as a monster.

Medusa must decide if she will give in to her dark fate, or claw her way out of the darkness to the life--and a love--she once knew...

You'll love Medusa because it's a subversive retelling of one of the most famous figures of Greek myth. Start reading now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lauren Goffigan
• Release date: Sep 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393605553

Book preview

Part I

Medusa, the Beauty

1

You have heard many tales of me, though most of them are the same. I have hair made of snakes, a face so gruesome to behold that it turns men to stone. Your great mortal hero Perseus slayed me by chopping off my head, which he then used as a weapon against his enemies. He gifted my head to the goddess Athena, who placed it upon her shining golden shield.

Some elements of my tale are true. I was born to the sea god and goddess Phorcys and Ceto, along with my two beloved sisters, Euryale and Stheno. My father was a distant figure; he rarely spoke to me nor seemed to notice me and my sisters. Whenever I glimpsed him moving through the halls of his underground palace, with a grace only immortals possessed, trailed by my mother and a host of servants or lesser gods, awe would consume me. He stood meters tall, his skin a deep red that shimmered beneath the ocean’s surface, his eyes glittering gold, matching the torch he would conjure when he ventured from the palace to the deeper depths of the oceans. He was guardian of the creatures of the deep, summoning them to the surface at his behest to overthrow the ships of sailors who displeased him, or simply because he was bored. He sometimes did this to displease Poseidon, the arrogant Olympian who ruled over the upper oceans and enjoyed causing chaos without other ocean gods interfering.

My mother was the opposite of my father in every way; she was kind, loving. I can still remember how she would take my hand and lead me to the various seas which were her domain, pointing out the creatures whom she ruled over. Though my mother had many children, she doted on each of us with such devotion any of us felt as if we were her one and only beloved child.

She did not seem to love my father so much as she feared him; he was her brother, and like she, he was born of the first goddess, my grandmother Gaia, goddess and the embodiment of the earth itself. My father seemed aware of his importance as the son of Gaia and her consort, my grandfather Pontus, the god and embodiment of the sea.

I met my grandparents once, when I was still a mere babe, only days after my sister and I were born. I remember my mother cradling me in her arms as she took us to see Gaia, who dwelled in a patch of rich green earth at the ocean’s edge, her long black curls coiling around her like leaves sprouting from trees during the harvest. Her eyes, as green as the deep forest in spring, settling on us as my mother knelt before her, displaying me and my sisters to her keen eyes. I can still recall her voice, sounding so different from any other immortals, as light as the wind but with the depth and power of the ocean, as she repeated each of our names. Euryale. Stheno. Medusa.

My grandfather terrified me; he dwelled in the deepest depths of the oceans: his eyes, as golden and glittering as my father’s, settling on us as my father presented us to him. He had merely given my father a nod before turning away, his tail flickering behind him as he descended back to his own palace beneath the sea floor.

I have lost count of all the various sea nymphs, gods, goddesses, and monsters who were my brothers and sisters, who all vied for our mother’s love and cowered beneath our father’s simmering regard.

But some stand out in my memory; my sister Thoosa, a water nymph who possessed my mother’s ankle-length, black curls and my father’s glittering golden eyes. Thoosa rarely spoke to me or my sisters, and whenever she did, she would gaze upon us with distaste, as if we were nectar that had gone sour.

There was my sister Echidna, who terrified mortals with her half-snake, half-maiden appearance; I think it delighted her to cause such fear in mortals. She had taken after our father in that regard.

I had another set of three sisters, called the Graeae: Deino, Enyo and Pemphredo, who were as close to each other as my sisters and I. The Graeae did not possess my sisters’ and my beauty; they were born with gray hair and an opaque, gray eye, sharing one tooth and eye among them. My siblings thought they were strange, avoiding them whenever they drifted into the dining halls or chambers, but I thought they were the least fearsome of my parents’ children; there was a serenity to them that I envied.

Though there were many siblings and relatives in my father’s palace, it was only my sisters with whom I spent my time. We spent our days walking arm in arm through the grand halls of Father's palace, giggling over our plates at feasts, whispering gossip to each other when the palace had fallen silent. We never spent a moment apart; we were at each other's sides from the time we awoke until we slept.

Euryale was the quietest of us, preferring to listen to the stories and gossip around us rather than deliver it; Stheno, the boldest and most flirtatious, never taking her beauty for granted, enjoyed the attentions of visiting gods, while Euryale and I tried to avoid such notice.

My sisters were both content to remain in the gilded halls of my father’s underwater palace, playing games and weaving, drinking and gossiping with other gods and goddesses of the waters. I should have also been content with life beneath the ocean; I was the product of two ocean gods. My grandfather was also an ocean god; the ocean was in my immortal blood.

Yet I burned with curiosity about the world outside our palace—and not just the vast oceans, but the world above—the world beyond. I had glimpsed it briefly as a babe when my mother took us to see Gaia, and I only had vague memories of the vast blue sky above, a lighter blue than that of the ocean waters in which I dwelled: patches of verdant lands, the fragrant scent of damp earth that surrounded my grandmother.

I had never seen a mortal, but I listened to any gossip of what they were like. Their lives were short, their bodies frail

Reviews for Medusa

[Claudia Roberts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved it, beautiful version of the story, I recommend it!