This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.
Book: “Wearing the Lion” by John Wiswell
Publishing Info: DAW, June 2025
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publicist.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: This second novel from Nebula Award-winning John Wiswell brings a humanizing, redemptive touch to the Hercules story in this mythological fantasy for fans of Jennifer Saint and Elodie Harper.
Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to Hera, goddess of family. Heracles’ mother raised him to revere Hera, as her attempt to avoid the goddess’ wrath. Unbeknownst to Heracles, he is yet another child Hera’s husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.
Hera loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion. She finally snaps and sends the Furies to make Heracles kill himself. But the moment Heracles goes mad, his children playfully ambush him, and he slays them instead. When the madness fades, Heracles’s wife, Megara, convinces him to seek revenge. Together they’ll hunt the Furies and learn which god did this.
Believing Hera is the only god he can still trust, Heracles prays to Hera, who is wracked with guilt over killing his children. To mislead Heracles, Hera sends him on monster-slaying quests, but he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, cures the illness of the Lernaean hydra, and bonds with Crete’s giant bull.
Hera struggles with her role in Heracles life as Heracles begins to heal psychologically by connecting with the monsters—while also amassing an army that could lay siege to Olympos.
Nebula Award-winning author John Wiswell brings his signature humanizing touch to the Hercules story, forever changing the way we understand the man behind the myth—and the goddess reluctantly bound to him.
Review: Thank you to Wunderkind PR for sending me an ARC of this novel!
Even though fantasy isn’t REALLY my wheelhouse on the blog, Serena actually suggested that I take a look at the book “Wearing the Lion” by John Wiswell, as I have been doing the “Lore Olympus” reviews on the blog. I read the description, and decided ‘why not?’, as Greek Mythology has been a huge thing in my life since I was a kid, and since I was doing the “Lore Olympus” read this would be a fun addendum. I’ve read a few other re-imaginings of Greek Myths beyond “Lore”, as we did “Circe” for book club, and I have read a few others as well. And “Wearing the Lion” was a bit of a median between the darker ones I’ve read and the more vibrant and optimistic ones.
“Wearing the Lion” essentially asks ‘what if instead of completing his tasks of killing the various creatures, Heracles instead finds atonement and redemption by taking them in? And what if Hera has a bit of reluctant guilt over her jealousy causing so much harm to Heracles and his family (as she sent a Fury to kill him but his children were killed instead, by his own hand). The Heracles story has never been a favorite of mine, but I do love a found family trope and this book is definitely all about that. We get our perspectives from both Heracles and Hera, seeing their inner most thoughts and their emotional journeys as they both strive for redemption in their own ways, and it has a lot of poignancy behind it. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about recent retelling of these myths is that authors try to find more empathy or insight into these beings that have been in the minds of humans for millennia, and have become almost untouchable because of it. Heracles has never really connected with me probably because he is so larger than life, but Wiswell delves deep into his grief, trauma, and guilt, and finds interesting motivation that taps into an empathy that this strongman doesn’t get a lot of the time. I loved seeing him befriend the Nemean Lion, and the Hydra, and the Hind, but REALLY loved the twist that Wiswell put on Boar. It’s all so creative and charming while also bittersweet as a man who was manipulated into killing his children seeks to find solace and atonement.
But I also liked how Wiswell portrays Hera. She isn’t to the level of ‘Queen Shit’ that I love seeing, but she has a lot of complexities and her own baggage that he acknowledges while not excusing it. Yes, Hera commanded that a dear friend murder Heracles only for it to go so wrong, and we see the way that Hera is unwilling to acknowledge it at first. But we also see her when she is at her best, when she is helping women in childbirth, when she is trying to help find the strength in herself to take accountability for her terrible mistake. Hera’s anger and resentment towards Heracles is always portrayed as such, but as a reader you do have an understanding as to why she would be so, so upset with the very idea of him, as Zeus is SUCH a jerk to her by flaunting all of his children from his flings and humiliating her over and over again. While I enjoyed the found family angles of Heracles’s path, it was Hera’s story that really resonated.
“Wearing the Lion” is a bittersweet spin on a myth that so many people know. I think that if you are like me and like seeing what present days authors can do with a classical story you should check it out.
Rating 8: A poignant retelling of a classic myth, “Wearing the Lion” is about grief, guilt, and found family.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Wearing the Lion” is included on the Goodreads list “Greek Mythology Retellings”.
The Library Ladies 