A beautiful little retelling of the Orpheus myth. Well written and enchanting.

Rating: 8/10

This is the first thing I’ve read by Joanne Harris, but it won’t be the last. This is a great story about a mother’s love and sacrifice for her child.

Harris has been working on these retellings of the Child Ballads for a while. This one incorporates old English songs and Greek myth in the forms of both the Hades//Demeter/Persephone story and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and I’m sure there are other things in there that I didn’t pick up on. I did get Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream vibes in places as well.

To be honest, fae stories are not my favourite thing to read, but I do come across one on the very odd occasion that I can get along with. Here, Harris balances out the selfish obliviousness of the fae (which I find is a common trait in fae stories, and why I generally dislike them) with the strength of a mother’s love for her daughter. As Fay searches for her lost daughter in the underworld, she learns the difficult sacrifices she must make in order to retrieve her. I thought the love and dedication Fay showed was touching and made the story compelling.

Another thing I found interesting about the story was the incorporation of different versions of different stories. We start with one version of a story of a fairy queen and end with a different version. I love how different rhymes and different elements of stories were brought up to show the mutability of story. It worked really well for me. I love that kind of thing anyway.

The imagery and descriptions were great here too, as was the writing. I picked this up on a whim after seeing Harris talking about writing, and I'm so glad I did. I will definitely read more of her work.

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4 stars.

Joanne M. Harris writes with such whimsy. Orfeia is steeped in imagery and prose that reminded me of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Alice in Wonderland. It's a beautiful exploration of grief and memory. I read this right before Mother's Day which made this even more impactful.

3.5 stars.
Another sweet fairy tale retold by Harris. Her stories are always simple, nostalgic, suffused with tales and lore from the fairy stories we all know and love. This retelling centered around how far a mother would go to save her child. Sweet, quick, and touching.

3.5 — I’m not exactly sure what I think about this book. Some of the writing was really beautiful, and the story of a mother’s love was equally beautiful. At the same time, so parts seemed a bit disjointed and hard to follow.