A retelling of Medea via Haynes’ great prose.
A worthy read full of different characters and their perspectives. These are the women affected by Jason, the top argonaut.
It might feel a little jarring at first to some readers, to read so many different perspectives (and a little surprise POV for us thrown in there), but the chapters are fast-paced and brief.
Very atmospheric.

'No Friend to This House' is described as a story about Greek tragic figure, Medea. But the title is a quote about her husband Jason (of Argonauts fame) and he is the centre of the story, which is told by a wide range of female characters around him. Medea, although she has a major role in both the story and the telling of it, doesn't appear until about halfway through. It's more accurately a tale of all the women affected by Jason, his 'heroic' quest, and its aftermath. The narrative passes from queens to peasants, birds to goddesses, and even the boat 'Argo' herself gets a turn or two.

None of the major characters are particularly likeable - not Jason himself, nor the goddesses, or even Medea - which does make it harder to invest in the story. The Argonauts seem to bring misery wherever they go, and their 'noble quest' is basically just to nick a fancy sheepskin on the whim of some horrible king whose only real goal was to get rid of his nephew on a long and hopefully deadly voyage. It's hard to really care about the outcome, and even someone like me with a sketchy knowledge of Greek myth knows that they will succeed.

Haynes writes well, as she always does, inhabiting the voices of the different characters and imagining a whole world of voices and lives surrounding the famous central ones. As individual snapshots or supershort stories the pieces are all well wrought. It's just that they don't come together as a cohesive enough whole to make a really effective novel. Once Medea is part of the action and her story is unspooling it gains the continuity and I did care about the outcome as I found her interesting and somewhat sympathetic even if not wholly likeable. It's a shame there wasn't a way of bringing her, or some other consistent narrator, in from the start.

This isn't the best novel Haynes has written, but it's still a good book and worth reading if you enjoy myth retellings.

Superb updating and retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts / Medea myth from Natalie Haynes. Her usual excellent approach to reworking shines through, bringing clarity and humour, as well as providing a bit of a corrective to the typically male focused world of Greek myth.

I’ve loved the Medea story since seeing version by Liz Lochhead 25 years back; this adds depth and understanding. Thoroughly recommend - Haynes is very much the expert in this genre.

This was a real struggle for me to get through unfortunately. The jumping around was hard to follow and I definitely didn’t feel intelligent enough to follow the story, especially as I’m not familiar with the original myth.

I love all of Natalie Haynes's writing and this is no exception, however it is the first of her books that I've thought that prior knowledge of the story and also on how Greek classic literature worked was important.
The book was full of humour and a brilliant feminist world view but the multiplicity of voices did become confusing at times, as did the frequent changes in point of view

A classic tale of betrayal, revenge and murder most foul.

Using multiple narratives, Haynes revisits the myth of Medea and Jason, hero of the Argonauts. This is a thrilling, witty and intelligent rendition. The characters – all of them flawed – leap off the page.

Natalie Haynes is a rare talent: a classicist who is also a skilled storyteller. This novel is certain to please her existing fans and attract new readers to the Greek myths.

The essay included at the end of the book identifies the author’s sources and explains the choices she made.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me an early copy of No Friend To This House.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this novel, as I didn’t remember the blurb, but I was pleasantly surprised!

It is always nice to read Greek mythology retellings especially when the narrative shifts and men are not always celebrated and thought as being the only heroes or focus in the story.

It was not a novel only on Medea and Jason, but on other stories such as the Ram’s.

I thoroughly enjoyed the multiple povs which gave more insight to the story. It could be sometimes confusing and slowed the pace of the novel, but it didn’t prevent me from wanting to continue reading and knowing what would happen to the characters.

The end and the book in general were well-written and made me want to pick up more books from Nathalie Heynes.

Natalie Haynes once again proves that she’s the reigning queen of reimagined myth. This novel is fierce, lyrical, and devastating in all the right ways.

The interplay between myth and modernity is handled with Haynes’ signature wit and precision, blending tragedy with commentary in a way that feels both timeless and relevant. The prose is taut, with moments of insight that linger long after the final page. It’s a story about the price of love and the fight for agency in a world that seeks to define women by their silence.

If you’re a fan of A Thousand Ships or Stone Blind, this book is essential reading. Haynes doesn’t just retell myth, she rewrites the narrative powerfully, giving depth to voices history tried to forget. No Friend to This House is bold, heartbreaking, and utterly unforgettable. I loved it.

DNF at 29%. I tried this from 30/06/25 to 05/07/25.

This just wasn’t for me. It’s written in the same style as Haynes’ other novels which just doesn’t work for me. It just feels disjointed to me. This will work for fans of Haynes’ other novels and I’m just not feeling it enough to continue reading.

Oh this book! This book was a masterpiece. This book was art in book format! I rated it 5 stars. I totally recommend everyone to read this book as fast as they can.

This was very good however it's marketed as Medea's story but it's not, it's about Jason and the golden fleece with a focus on Medea in the second half.
The writting style is my favorite part it's so engaging I couldn't put it down. We have dozens of pov including a dove at one point, I was never bored.

I do love a good Greek myth, but will admit that my knowledge of the many tales is sketchy at best. I’m probably not alone in say that all I know about Medea is the whole nasty, killed-her-children bit, and anything about Jason or the Argonauts from the Ray Harryhausen movie.

Natalie Haynes is very familiar and highly educated in these matters, and seems to be working her way through several – including Stone Blind – adding a feminist rebalancing to the mythology. Women are usually poorly treated, or just background faces, so I strongly approve of the endeavour. However, that doesn’t mean it’s going to make for comfortable reading.

I do wonder exactly who the target audience for this was. I feel I would have gotten more from it if I was more familiar with the stories, beyond just the broad strokes. Instead I felt like we rushed through the earlier parts of things, cramming just so much in – worthy background, but also felt my head spinning a bit. We jump around so many points of view and it doesn’t help that I’m not sure any of the characters come across as all that sympathetic. Jason – hero in the movies etc – is, pardon the phrasing, a total dick here. Well, yes. And omg – pun intended 😉 – the gods are just obnoxious all round. Again: well, yes. There is a satisfaction to having the usual layers of rephrasing stripped away and just: these are awful individuals. Doesn’t make for a cheery read, though!

Medea herself is given more of a voice than ever before, and yes it absolutely helps with that core myth. But, she is not perfect. And it’s frustrating how much is her whining, however appropriate that might be in the circumstances.

Overall, this *is* a good book, but one that didn’t quite click with me as much as I would have liked. Some myths are just always going to be… well, unpleasant, at many levels. I still wanted to read on, always wanted to see how things were going to ‘turn out’/be explained, and on that front I’d call this a success, even if I didn’t entirely love the journey getting there.

No Friend to This House is a fast-paced and compelling retelling of Jason and the Argonauts, with a strong focus on Medea and the fallout of their relationship. Natalie Haynes brings her signature wit and depth to the story, giving voice to characters who are often silenced or sidelined in myth.

Told through multiple perspectives, the narrative moves quickly and keeps you engaged — I read it in under 24 hours. Haynes explores themes of gaslighting, betrayal, and revenge with nuance and emotion, making these ancient stories feel incredibly modern and relevant.

Medea, in particular, is portrayed with complexity and empathy — not just a villain or a victim, but a fully realized woman caught in a brutal world. If you enjoy Greek mythology retellings, especially ones that center women’s experiences, this is a must-read.

I absolutely loved this! Haynes does an excellent job of painting a portrait of Jason without ever speaking from his point of view, instead focusing on how he affects the lives of those around him. The polyphonic narrative is where Haynes really excels and I was thrilled to see her signature humour and sarcasm come through, particularly in the chapters from the perspectives of the goddesses. I wasn't familiar with the myth of Jason and the Argonauts but that did not matter at all, and if anything made all the stories I picked up along the way even more interesting. So, so brilliant. I bet Haynes does a fantastic audio narration!

In which Natalie Haynes retells the story of Jason, the Argonauts and Medea. Now, simply bolting the two halves of the story back together, when we often get the first half as told by Ray Harryhausen and the second from Euripides, already makes for a radical shift; I once saw the voyage staged as a free play for kids, with the same cast coming back after an interval to do the tragedy, and wondered how drastically that was going to traumatise any younger audience members who stuck around. But while Haynes has a firm grasp of her sources, she also knows they contradict each other anyway, and feels free to tweak them in furtherance of the version she's telling, just as her predecessors did. The easy way to characterise this would be as part of the raft of feminist reworkings of legends, and there are certainly lines which play into that: "It's curious, isn't it, that anything wanted by a man or a god becomes just an object?" And yes, the point of view is traded between mortal women, goddesses, and those in between, plus the odd ship, rock or arrow, and yes, the menfolk often look distinctly inglorious from that angle. Frequently in ways that recall the present, too, though never clumsily so. The men of Lemnos, who suddenly take against their wives; the crabbed, paranoid kings; most of all Jason himself, so plausible when he wants something, so heedless once he tires of it, so hurt that anyone could possibly hold any of this against him, the great hero, even though his only real achievement is knowing who to ask to do everything for him – they all have their counterparts, but we're left to spot those parallels for ourselves, rather than being beaten around the head with them. Crucially, though, plenty of the female characters are just as dreadful; Jason's would-be Corinthian wife Glauke is a particularly pungent portrait of entitled jealousy, but I did find myself worrying whether I might be struck down by some horrendous curse if I chuckled too much at Haynes' Mean Girls vision of Olympus. Thank goodness this is definitely a fictional portrayal, eh? I know Haynes primarily from her radio work, and the one other book I've read of hers, Divine Might, was non-fiction which retooled that material for a different medium, but was very much told in the same wry voice. This isn't; sadder, more savage, alive to the magic of the myths but also to the collateral damage. And of course, given the film played fast and loose even with the portion it adapted, there aren't even any skellingtons.

(Netgalley ARC)

'No Friend to This House' by Natalie Haynes tells the story of Jason and the Argonauts from the female perspective. Goddesses', queens, birds, Medea and the moon speak, to tell the story with humour and pathos. The Jason presented here is hungry to be a hero, charming, full of hubris, and not good at keeping his promises. Medea is flawed, and has a poor memory for her role in events, but is equally the wronged woman, pushed into situations by the gods and left to deal with the consequences.

Haynes is an excellent scholar and manages to give the myths life. I particularly enjoyed the section close to the beginning of the novel on the Island of Lemnos, where the men suddenly leave the women due to their sudden odour - something caused by the goddess Aphrodite for them failing to honour her. However, as someone who enjoys modern retellings of Greek myths, but doesn't have a sound knowledge of the source material, I did at times find this novel confusing, particularly as the time line moved around a bit, particularly in relation to the golden fleece. This might have been exacerbated by reading the e-book version, as there is a list of characters at the front of the book, something slightly less accessible on Kindle. Nevertheless I did enjoy this book and would recommend it to Haynes fans, as well as those who like Pat Barker, Madeline Miller and Stephen Fry.

Natalie Haynes has done it once again. Something about the fantastical way she weaves a story, telling all the intricacies and drawing attention to those often overlooked, always does it for me. This is far more than the story of Medea and Jason. The novel includes narratives from all those involved in the tale - from the goddesses who influence the lives of Medea and Jason, to the Golden Ram who is sacrificed to become the Golden Fleece. This was my most anticipated read of the year, and I have not been disappointed.

What an unmitigated joy it is to read a new book by Natalie Haynes. I wolfed this down in two sittings and immediately went back to start again, in order to pick up anything I'd missed. Natalie Haynes unfailingly makes the reader see a well known story from Greek Myth in a new light, from a female perspective, using meticulous research, a vast knowledge and love of the subject matter, wry humour and straight talking. This turns the story of Medea on its head, and makes you see events unfolding from her perspective, and from many other characters. Authors such as Haynes, Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Jennifer Saint are giving the women of Ancient Greece a voice previously unheard: one which questions the true legacy of the Heroes and Gods. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review of the book.

Oh, man. I really didn't enjoy this. In fairness, I fully believe it's a me thing. I have never rated a Natalie Haynes book higher than 3.5, and that is purely because of my reading tastes. Haynes isn't one for the dramatic flairs and the pure angst that has you crying at 3am over mythological characters -- which is exactly what I want from my Greek Mythology. Having read Medea by Rosie Hewlett this year (and adoring it) I think I've just hit the peak of Medea books. I couldn't wrap my head around the heaps of characters in this one, and it took until around 40% for me to develop any interest in the story.

This is a brilliant book. As in Stone Blind Natalie Haynes takes a familiar myth - in this case the story of Jason and the Argonauts' search for the golden fleece and of his marriage to Medea; she then turns it on its head by telling it in a range of different voices, all those of women (including goddesses) who were involved in the tale.

Each voice is distinct but the overall tone is wry and amusing as Jason's hero status is punctured and he is revealed as a charming, weak pretty boy. The silent women speak and they are gripping and give such a different slant to a familiar story. But don't be put off if you're not familiar with the story already - this novel is very accessible whether you know it or not. Highly recommended and many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy