Orphaned young and raised in seclusion, Lucina of Greece is sent at thirteen to Elysium, a community of philosophers, artists, and seekers gathered under the guidance of her guardian, Aesculapius. The only woman among them, she is marked from the beginning by an uncommon mind and by a strange power of inward perception that others seek to explain, discipline, or use.
Elysium gives Lucina knowledge, friendship, and the first shape of her vocation, but it cannot contain the whole of her life. Leaving Greece for the young city of Rome, she enters a harsher and more practical world, where her gifts lead her into the role of priestess and oracle. There she learns to read the hidden wounds of others, to counsel the powerful and the broken, and to bear the loneliness of seeing more than those around her are willing to see.
Set among the islands of ancient Greece and in Rome before its rise to imperial power, Return to Elysium follows Lucina from childhood through love, service, marriage, and return. More than a tale of ancient Greece and Rome, it is Joan Grant’s searching portrait of a gifted soul learning what her powers are for—and what they cost.
