Food for the Gods

By turns whimsical, thrilling, hilarious and touching, Karen Dudley’s ingeniously original Food for the Gods and its sequel, Kraken Bake (forthcoming in 2014), reinvent a classical hero, while bringing to life the crowded, throbbing streets of ancient Athens in a way that both honours the Greek myths and reinterprets them for a new generation of readers.

Having been chopped up and served to the gods for tea, Pelops, Prince of Lydia, is kindly remade by the Olympian dinner guests and gifted with a talent for the culinary arts. But after heading for the bright lamps of Athens, Pelops discovers that life is not exactly golden for a celebrity chef in the golden age of Greece. Ruthless patrons and jealous rivals are bad enough, but when a couple of the less responsible gods offer to help him make a name for himself, Pelops begins to realize that when the gods decide they owe you a favour, you’d better start saying your prayers.