Ioanna Papadopoulou, a Greek writer living in Scotland and author of debut novel Winter Harvest, has a deeper connection to the culture she writes of than many authors today. But is that enough to make Winter Harvest a good book?
The book centers around Demeter, our narrator. She begins by recounting her birth and her almost immediate betrayal by her father, the titan Kronos, who swallows her. That’s right—he swallowed her.
It may sound shocking to those unfamiliar with Greek myths, but according to tradition, Demeter, along with her siblings, Hestia, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, are swallowed by their cruel and cowardly father as babes because he was afraid they would overthrow him.
But one sibling escapes this fate. Zeus.
Soon, Demeter and the others are free thanks to Zeus, and Kronos’ reign of terror is no more. After a war with the Titans, the Olympians, as they come to be known, are the center of godly power.
Demeter becomes the goddess of harvest and agriculture, bringing life and reliable, stable food sources to the mortals who live below Mount Olympus, the seat of the gods’ power. Once safe from her father’s stomach, she craves freedom and is not interested in a life of idle pleasure on Olympus. Instead, she happily accepts her new role in providing food for mortals.
In the canon of Greek myth, these divine beings do not function like everyday humans and mortals. Their lineage and “family ties” are either nonexistent or not on the same scale as humans. Hence the brother-sister marriages and other couplings between those who, by our standards, should never be together, that are found in myth.
I will spare some of the finer details, but Demeter longs for and has a child, Kore. One day, when Kore suddenly goes missing, Demeter goes on a rampage.
No life will prosper. Nothing will grow as long as she is separated from her daughter.
A good chunk of this book is Demeter searching for Kore, with no idea where her beloved daughter could be. Demeter comes across as extremely possessive, and we never get a good enough look at Kore to see how she feels. Her character is barely explored before she disappears, and she feels mostly one-dimensional.
It seems everyone, all of her fellow Olympians, knows what happened to Kore and where she is, except for Demeter.
When she is finally reunited with her daughter after causing famine throughout Greece, this reunion feels lackluster. By now, Kore has become Persephone, whose name means bringer of death.
From helping her mother tend to lifegiving plants to now reigning as Queen of the Underworld, Kore-Persephone experiences quite the transformation. At least she seems more interesting and sure of herself now.
The book does end on a happy note, with Demeter finally accepting her daughter’s life and decisions. Humans praise Demeter and know how important she is to their welfare. While she does not get to see her daughter all year, she is allotted six months, hence the creation of seasons as we know them.
This retelling does do a good job of delving partway into many of Demeter’s myths and mysteries, touching on them a little bit throughout but not fully committing to any.
Winter Harvest suffers from poor writing and bad editing. There are inconsistencies with capitalization and many things are capitalized that don’t need to be, especially things that aren’t proper nouns. The problem is that it’s a good story, but it reads like a first draft.
What it does have going for it is its originality. There are plenty of Hades x Persephone retellings out there, but this is one of the first and only ones that focuses on Demeter. It gives a little more of her story than just Persephone’s mother.
Unfortunately, her character isn’t very likable for much of the book. She doesn’t seem like the kind of mother you’d like to have. She’s possessive to the point of toxicity.
Winter Harvest also feels repetitive, with little really happening or being fully realized for much of it. Demeter kills plants, banishes life from the earth, and searches for Kore over and over.
She’s angry at the gods. She punishes humans for no reason.
She encounters other deities who do not help her or who help a little but don’t ultimately bring Kore back or tell Demeter where she is. Things happen to Demeter, making her seem reactionary instead of proactive for the most part.
Plus, she constantly asks us, as readers, questions that we don’t have answers to. It’s not quite that bad; we’re reading a novel after all, but Demeter’s internal monologue is like a series of questions that no one, her or us, has the answer to. It quickly starts to feel boring.
Some reviewers and press surrounding this novel laud Papadopoulou for her connection to Greece. That certainly is important, but it doesn’t automatically qualify her to write a myth retelling.
The writing is simplistic, with little depth. It promises to be not just a retelling but a dark retelling. But with the myriad of typos and inconsistencies, paired with the overall shallowness, it doesn’t really deliver.
But again, it can’t be overstated that the promise of a good story is there. The author just needed to keep pushing herself for something greater to come to life on these pages. If she writes another, I will most likely be reading for the different perspective I know she can offer, and hopefully, her craft will improve with time.
That, and she hires a new editor.
Overall, Winter Harvest feels like another novel jumping on the myth-retelling train, first made popular by Madeline Miller. With better editing and proofreading, it could have stood out more, especially because it explores gods and goddesses not often written about by others.
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Have you read Winter Harvest? What did you think? Sound off in the comments, and let us know.
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Amanda Larch Hinchman
Amanda Larch works as a writer and editor when she’s not in the middle of a good book. Learn more about her work and view her portfolio at www.amandalarchwriter.com/ and keep up with her on Goodreads @_groovyginger_.
