Hera

The gods of Olympus deliver Real Housewives–level drama in this juicy interpretation of Greek myth from bestseller Saint (Ariadne). Hera and Zeus are the most powerful gods among the surviving children of the evil Cronus, whom they defeated along with his fellow Titans. In the aftermath, Zeus unceremoniously assigns realms to his lesser siblings: Poseidon gets the sea and Hades the underworld. His sisters, meanwhile, cleverly maneuver into roles they covet without drawing Zeus’s ire: Hestia chooses to rule the hearth, Demeter the harvest, and Aphrodite love. Knowing Hera is his equal and fearing her competition, Zeus hopes to secure her loyalty by declaring her his queen. She initially refuses him, and the furious Zeus rapes her in an attempt to ensure her compliance. Hera finally agrees to his proposal because she wants “a world under the rule of benevolent goddesses, instead of power-hungry gods,” but she also vows to “use every resource she has at her disposal to bring him down.” As Hera strives to outmaneuver her self-obsessed, rage-filled husband, the unruly pantheon surrounding her engage in Machiavellian power plays, one-upmanship, and petty vendettas. Readers will savor the theatrics. (Aug.)