Stone Blind

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What to expect

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023.

This audio edition is read by the author, Natalie Haynes.

In Stone Blind, the instant Sunday Times bestseller, Natalie Haynes brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before.

'Witty, gripping, ruthless' – Margaret Atwood via X (Twitter)

‘So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters’

Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt.

When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim. Medusa is changed forever – writhing snakes for hair and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. She can look at nothing without destroying it.

Desperate to protect her beloved sisters, Medusa condemns herself to a life of shadows. Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .

‘A fierce feminist exploration of female rage, written with wit and empathy’ – Glamour

'Natalie Haynes energizes the melodrama of ancient Greek gods with a divine level of storyteller’s flair . . . Listeners who enjoy transformative retellings of Greek myths will find much to relish in this production' - AudioFile

Critics Review

Witty, gripping, ruthless
Margaret Atwood via X (Twitter)
The rollicking narrative voice that energises Stone Blind . . . is a voice that feels at once bitingly (post)modern and filled with old wisdom . . . The Gorgon’s head will take on a new and powerful resonance as a symbol of the way stories can be warped by time. Stone Blind acts as a brilliant and compellingly readable corrective.
The Observer
Stone Blind is an exceptionally powerful retelling of Medusa's story, an emotional gut punch of a novel. Haynes brilliantly pulls off the feat of seamlessly alternating humour and heartbreak, creating characters that stay with you long after the novel's end. It is a dazzling achievement
Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den trilogy
With this, her third novel based on ancient myth, [Haynes] has found a way of using all her classical erudition and her vivid sense of the ambiguous potency of the ancient stories, while being simultaneously very, very funny
Guardian
A fierce feminist exploration of female rage, written with wit and empathy. Haynes makes the classics brutally relevant, and we reckon this one is going to be huge
Glamour
It is no exaggeration to say that Haynes is the modern embodiment of the best of Homer. She is a proper, classic storyteller, whose linguistic skills and wit will have you hanging on every word
Radio Times
Stone Blind is inventive and playful . . . [and] very funny
The Times
Pat Barker, Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller have all successfully picked at the seams of the traditionally male take on these fantastic tales. But Natalie Haynes’s genius, this time with Stone Blind, her third Greek myth novel, is to not just focus on the female experience of Greek myth but also to add zest, humour and more than a little mischief . . . The ride is gripping, funny and heartbreaking. Love, sorrow, adventure and humour - Stone Blind has it all
Metro
What makes a monster is the central question in Natalie Haynes’ wry, spry feminist take on the Medusa myth . . . an earthy, playful yet rage-filled upending of the Greek hero trope
Mail Online
With wit, humanity and extraordinary imagination, Haynes breathes life and meaning into myths as she has done so brilliantly before (most famously with A Thousand Ships). She also shows that monsters can be divine or mortal. Not all heroes wear capes – and not all villains have snakes
The i
Haynes’ clever, empathetic writing transforms Medusa from Gorgon into a girl, who’s a victim of the cruel machinations of the gods and of circumstance
Red Magazine
Natalie Haynes has made a contemporary classic out of a classic . . . and it should win prizes
Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
There’s real tenderness in Haynes’s portrait of Medusa, a mortal abomination born into a family of divinities, and the efforts of her immortal Gorgon sisters to protect her from herself
The Spectator
Haynes is [a] master of her trade . . . She succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories
Telegraph
Haynes is the nation’s great muse
The Week
Natalie Haynes is swiftly becoming this generation’s Mary Renault
Observer
With her trademark passion, wit and fierce feminism, Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War. Her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished
Madeline Miller on A Thousand Ships
Haynes is a rock-star mythologist
Washington Post on A Thousand Ships

User Reviews

Book 4.3
Narration 5.0
5.0
5.0
Elizabethelliott1 20/09/2024
5.0
5.0
Loved this! Fantastic, funny, and who does decide who the monsters are?!
n2mcguire 01/02/2024
3.0
5.0
Tdk 03/04/2023

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