In Greek mythology, Alcestis is known as the good wife; she loved her husband so much that she died and went to the underworld in his place.
This compelling new take on the classic story gives voice to the woman behind the ideal: What were her true motivations? And what happened to Alcestis in the three days she spent in the afterlife?
"[A]n engaging, subversive reimagining of the tale of the eponymous Greek heroine who is upheld as a shining example of the dutiful wife for her selfless sacrifice. Katharine Buetner's Alcestis is a far more willful heroine, and her encounters with the gods of the underworld resonate with a genuine sense of the numinous."
Jacqueline Carey author of Namaah's Kiss and Kushiel's Dart
"Everyday life in the ancient world, a no-escape-clause afterlife in the underworld, vulnerable mortals, and passionate and tormented gods-all are imagined with intense actuality in a novel that is as intoxicating and hypnotic as the sacred smoke inhaled by the oracles."
Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck
"Beutner renders her multilayered heroine with beauty and delicacy, and concerns herself with no less than the intricacies of the soul."
