Circe is poised to become the literary sensation of the summer, as much for the quality of its writing as its timeliness (Sunday Times Magazine)

Enough magic, enchantment, voyages and wonders to satisfy the most jaded sword-and-sorcery palate. Miller approaches Odysseus’s story from Circe’s point of view, richly evoking her protagonist’s overlapping identities as goddess, witch, lover and mother (Adam Roberts Guardian, Books of the Year)

A triumph (The Times, Books of the Year)

Circe back as superwoman . Homer’s witch get a kickass modern makeover. Miller’s Me Too-era, kickass portrait of a woman trying to defy the men and Fates arrayed against her is enchanting. Blisteringly modern (The Times)

In a thrilling tour de force of imagination, Miller makes her otherworldly heroine a complex, sympathetic figure for whom we cheer throughout. Circe is a truly spellbinding novel, the mesmerising shimmer of ancient magic rising from it like a heat haze (Mail on Sunday)

A brilliantly strange work of mythic science fiction, as effortlessly expressive within the palaces of gods as it is about the world below . Superb . This is both a fabulous novel and a fascinating retelling; the best compliment, perhaps, that any myth could hope for (Daily Telegraph)

This year’s novels were filled with the angry clamour of women’s voices: ignored, idealistic or excitingly ambivalent. Madeline Miller reflected the mood for feminist revisionism with her lissom follow-up Circe, which casts the witch goddess in the Odyssey not as a bit player in a man’s epic but as the star of her own show (Claire Allfree Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year)

It was a big year for creative retelling of myth and pre-modern literature; a favourite was Madeline Miller’s Circe, a distinctive, lyrical novel about power, agency and reponsibility, from the point of view of this crafty, much-misunderstood goddess (Emily Wilson Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year)

The writing is lovely, the tone assured, and the touch just right (Alexander McCall Smith Independent, Books of the Year)