Wearing the Lion

By: John Wiswell

Published by Astra Publishing House, 2026-06-02

"This novel effortlessly ascends to the heights of Mount Olympus. Tough and tender and bittersweet. Wearing the Lion establishes Wiswell firmly on the new fantasy landscape." —T. Kingfisher, Hugo Award-winning author of Nettle & Bone

"Wiswell makes something new and thrilling—and funny and wrenching and tender—out of a very old myth." —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love

Nebula Award-winning author of Someone You Can Build a Nest In John Wiswell brings a humanizing and humorous touch to the Hercules story, forever changing the way we understand the man behind the myth—and the goddess reluctantly bound to him

Sometimes a goddess's worst enemy is her biggest fan.

Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to the goddess Hera. If only he knew that his very face is an insult to her...as he is yet another child that Hera’s dipshit husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.

“Auntie Hera” loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion, until she snaps and causes an unspeakably tragic accident: the death of Heracles' children. Plunged into grief and desperate for revenge, Heracles is determined to find the god that did this.

Wracked with guilt and desperate to save face, Hera distracts Heracles with monster-slaying quests, only to find that he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, bonds with the Lernaean hydra, and heeds the Ceryneian hind.

Each challenge adds a new monster to Heracles' newfound family. A family that just might lay siege to Mount Olympos.