Looking for books like The Song of Achilles? These 12 mythology retellings and tragic love stories capture Madeline Miller’s lyrical, heartbreaking magic.
The best books like The Song of Achilles include Circe by Madeline Miller, Ariadne and Elektra by Jennifer Saint, A Thousand Ships and Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes, and The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. These lyrical retellings reimagine Greek mythology through love, grief, and the voices the original epics left behind.
Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles took the world by storm by reframing Homer’s Iliad as a tender, devastating love story between Patroclus and Achilles. Her prose is intimate and luminous, her tragedy inevitable, and her grasp of the ancient world deep enough to make myth feel personal. After the last page, the grief lingers, and most readers want something that delivers the same blend of beauty, longing, and doom.
The good news is that the recent wave of feminist and literary mythology retellings offers plenty to satisfy that craving. If you want more, explore our guide to the best historical fiction books, discover the best Greek authors who shaped these myths in the first place, or browse our full author guides for your next obsession.
Table of Contents
Open Table of Contents
- Books to Read Similar to The Song of Achilles
- 1. Circe by Madeline Miller
- 2. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
- 3. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
- 4. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
- 5. Elektra by Jennifer Saint
- 6. Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
- 7. Ithaca by Claire North
- 8. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
- 9. The Iliad by Homer
- 10. The Odyssey by Homer
- 11. Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
- 12. Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
- Why These Books Capture The Song of Achilles’ Appeal
Books to Read Similar to The Song of Achilles
1. Circe by Madeline Miller
Circe is the obvious first stop, because it is Madeline Miller’s only other novel and shares every quality that made The Song of Achilles unforgettable. It follows the witch-goddess Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios, as she is exiled to a remote island and slowly claims her own power across centuries of myth.
Where The Song of Achilles gives us a doomed romance, Circe gives us a sweeping coming-of-age and a meditation on mortality, motherhood, and what it means to choose a human life. The lyrical prose and emotional depth are identical, making it the single most natural follow-up read.
2. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Ariadne retells the myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth from the perspective of Ariadne, the Cretan princess who helps Theseus and is later abandoned. Jennifer Saint writes with the same intimate, mournful register Miller fans love, foregrounding the women who are usually footnotes in the heroes’ stories.
Like The Song of Achilles, it finds the human heartbreak inside a famous legend, asking what it costs to love a hero. If Miller’s reframing of the Iliad moved you, Saint’s reframing of the Theseus myth will land just as hard.
3. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
A Thousand Ships retells the entire Trojan War through the voices of its women, from Helen and Cassandra to the captured queens and grieving mothers left in the city’s ashes. Natalie Haynes is a classicist, and her command of the source material rivals Miller’s own.
It shares The Song of Achilles’s setting and its conviction that the people on the edges of the epic deserve a full inner life. Witty, furious, and elegiac by turns, it expands the same world Miller wrote into a sweeping chorus.
4. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
The Silence of the Girls tells the story of the Iliad from the perspective of Briseis, the captured queen who becomes Achilles’ prize. Pat Barker, a Booker Prize winner, brings a starker, more visceral realism to the Trojan War than Miller’s romanticism.
For readers who loved The Song of Achilles but want the grit beneath the glory, this is essential. It occupies the exact same events from a wholly different angle, exposing the brutality of war and the women treated as spoils within it.
5. Elektra by Jennifer Saint
Elektra weaves together three women bound to the house of Atreus: Clytemnestra, who murders her husband Agamemnon; Cassandra, the prophetess no one believes; and Elektra, consumed by vengeance. Jennifer Saint’s second novel is darker and more intricate than Ariadne.
It shares Miller’s gift for making ancient curses feel like intimate family tragedy. Fans of The Song of Achilles who appreciated how Miller grounded mythic fate in personal relationships will find the same emotional logic at work here.
6. Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
Stone Blind retells the myth of Medusa, the Gorgon whose gaze turns men to stone, reframing her as a victim rather than a monster. Natalie Haynes asks who decides which figures in myth are heroes and which are villains, and what we lose by accepting the old verdicts.
Like The Song of Achilles, it humanises a figure the original stories flatten, and its sympathy for the maligned and the doomed echoes Miller’s tenderness toward Patroclus. Sharp and compassionate, it is a worthy companion piece.
7. Ithaca by Claire North
Ithaca retells the events of The Odyssey from the home front, following Penelope as she holds her kingdom together during Odysseus’s long absence, narrated by the goddess Hera. Claire North gives the queen who waited a political mind and a fierce will of her own.
It shares The Song of Achilles’s interest in the people history sidelines and its lyrical, character-first approach to myth. If you loved how Miller made you feel for someone standing just outside the spotlight of legend, Penelope’s story will resonate.
8. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood’s slim, sly retelling of The Odyssey narrated by Penelope from the underworld, with a chorus of the twelve hanged maids. It is wittier and more experimental than Miller’s work, but it shares the same impulse to give voice to those the epics silenced.
For The Song of Achilles readers curious about how a literary heavyweight handles Greek myth, Atwood is a brilliant detour. You can find more of her work in our guide to authors like Margaret Atwood.
9. The Iliad by Homer
The Iliad is the source Madeline Miller drew on for The Song of Achilles, the ancient epic of rage, grief, and the Trojan War in which Patroclus and Achilles first appear. Reading it after Miller’s novel is a revelation, showing just how faithfully she worked within the original.
Emily Wilson’s recent translation makes the poem unexpectedly readable and emotionally immediate. If Miller’s love story moved you, encountering Homer’s own account of Achilles mourning Patroclus is one of the most rewarding follow-ups available.
10. The Odyssey by Homer
The Odyssey is Homer’s second great epic, the homecoming of Odysseus after the fall of Troy, threaded with gods, monsters, and the wife who waits ten years for his return. It is the wellspring for several books on this list, including Circe, Ithaca, and The Penelopiad.
For The Song of Achilles fans deepening their love of the ancient world, Emily Wilson’s landmark translation is the ideal way in. Its rhythm and clarity make a three-thousand-year-old poem feel startlingly alive.
11. Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
Lore Olympus is a wildly popular webcomic and graphic novel series that reimagines the myth of Hades and Persephone in a modern, neon-lit Olympus. Rachel Smythe foregrounds a slow-burn romance and the inner lives of gods usually treated as plot devices.
It is lighter and more contemporary than The Song of Achilles, but it shares Miller’s central move: taking a familiar myth and finding the aching, human love story inside it. For readers who came for the romance as much as the mythology, it is an easy, addictive next read.
12. Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
Pandora blends Greek myth with Georgian-era historical fiction, following Dora Blake, who discovers a mysterious ancient vase in her late parents’ antiquities shop in 1799 London. Susan Stokes-Chapman threads the myth of Pandora’s jar through a gothic story of secrets and ambition.
It is a different flavour from Miller’s straight retellings, but it shares the same fascination with how ancient myth echoes into human lives. For The Song of Achilles fans who also love atmospheric historical fiction, it is a satisfying crossover.
Why These Books Capture The Song of Achilles’ Appeal
These twelve books succeed because they understand what made The Song of Achilles so unforgettable: the fusion of luminous prose, deep classical knowledge, and an aching emotional core that turns distant legend into something intimate and devastating. Each one reimagines familiar myth through love, grief, or the voices the original epics left in the margins.
Whether you are drawn to feminist retellings that hand the narrative to silenced women, lyrical romances steeped in tragic inevitability, or the ancient epics that started it all, these books deliver the same blend of beauty and heartbreak. They prove that the appetite for thoughtful, character-driven mythology is stronger than ever.
For your next reading session, any of these novels will pull you back into the world of gods, heroes, and doomed love, just as The Song of Achilles did when Patroclus first followed Achilles to the shores of Troy. When you are ready for more, our roundups of the best historical fiction books and best classic literature books will keep your shelf full.