Daughter of Chaos

Playing fast and loose with both Greek myth and ancient history, Webb debuts with a chaotic and disappointing feminist coming-of-power story, the first in her Dark Pantheon Trilogy. Teenage Danae, the outspoken second daughter of a Naxos fisherman, resents her village’s blind acceptance of the cruel 12-god Olympian pantheon that demands human sacrifice. Then her sister, Alea, is mysteriously abducted by the gods, impregnated, and returned to the village, where she is shunned by her fellow mortals and driven to suicide. This spurs Danae onto a vengeful odyssey of violent adventures, each marked by a mystical experience in which she gradually takes possession of her prophesied unearthly powers to free humanity from the gods. Despite Webb’s heroic efforts to broaden Danae’s shallow growing-up tale to epic proportions, there’s a YA feeling to this. Off-key invocations of mythological figures and places often fail to resonate, and the girl power themes feel shoehorned in, failing to engage with actual history. Considering the glut of Greek mythological retellings, readers will be better served elsewhere. (Jan.)