Lore of Proserpine

In this strange and luminous allegory, Hewlett reimagines the myth of Proserpine, Roman goddess of spring and queen of the underworld, not as distant classical figure but as a living presence in an English landscape charged with ancient meaning. The novel weaves together pastoral beauty and dark mythological resonance, following characters who move through a world where the boundaries between the natural and the numinous have grown thin. Proserpine's descent and return become a meditation on death, seasonal renewal, and the moral weight of the natural world. Hewlett, a distinguished classical scholar, infuses every page with learned allusion, yet the prose remains grounded in sensory richness, woodland, storms, the textures of earth and sky. What emerges is a book that operates on multiple registers: as a haunting pastoral romance, as a spiritual allegory, and as a meditation on how humanity has always projected its own conflicts onto the cosmos. It asks what lies beneath the surface of things, and whether the old myths still hold truths we have forgotten how to name. For readers who treasure mythological fiction, allegorical depth, and prose that moves between the luminous and the uncanny.