Review of Hecate by Nikita Gil – The ancient Greek goddess works magic in this novel | books

HEcate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and the underworld, is the archetypal witch known to many from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, as she rebukes the Strange Sisters for their meddling. Besides magic and necromancy, Hekate is also associated with borders and crossroads, where he acts as a protector and guide for lost travelers. In art, she is usually depicted carrying torches to show the way, and accompanied by a black dog or snake.

In Hecate the Enchantress, poet Nikita Gill reimagines the life of this mysterious goddess in poetry. Born during a war between the ancient Titan rulers and the gods of New Olympia, Hecate was raised alone by her Titan mother, Astraea, who told her she was destined for greatness. The couple lives alone in a dilapidated palace but is forced to flee when Zeus and Poseidon come to enslave them. Seeking refuge in the Underworld, Asteria is denied entry, but Hekate, still a Godling, is accepted and taken into the care of Styx and Hades. There, she briefly meets her father, Perseus, chained to the mountain after the Titan’s defeat, and who predicts a future for his daughter in which “the dead will bow to you as you move in their wake.”

Gill, who specializes in women-centred accounts of Greek and Hindu mythology, is a driving and engaging narrator. It portrays Hecate as an evil deity rather than a traumatized young man searching for love and a sense of belonging, and whose divine powers worry the gods of Olympus. “The sound that amplified from their halls around my name was not laughter,” Hecate says. “But the faint whispers of fear.”

Available via Simon & Schuster Audio, 6 hours 9 minutes

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