Ecstasy : a novel / Ivy Pochoda.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A deliciously dark horror reimagining of a Greek tragedy, by Ivy Pochoda, winner of the LA Times Book Prize.

Lena wants her life back. Her wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. Lena lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son's, pet project--the luxurious Agape Villas.

Years of marriage amongst the wealthy elite has whittled Lena's spirit into rope and sinew, smothered by tasteful cocktail dresses and unending small talk. On Naxos she yearns to rediscover her true nature, remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was, but Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel, demanding that she fall in line.

Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night, hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she'll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether Lena will join them, and what it will cost her.

Ecstasy is a riveting, darkly poetic, one-sitting read about empowerment, desire, and what happens when women reject the roles set out for them.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In the backstory to this defiantly feminist reimagining of Euripides' The Bacchae from Pochoda (Sing Her Down), broke 20-somethings Lena and Hedy were partying their way around the world when Lena met ruthless hotel developer Stavros. Seduced by his wealth, Lena "stumbled into a hasty marriage" that produced "asshole" son Drew and trapped her in a suffocating life of cloistered luxury. Lena assumes she's finally free when, 35 years later, Stavros dies on the dunes near Agape Villas, his under-construction resort on Naxos, Greece, but Drew takes over as CEO and family despot. Hedy has remained a firecracker, so a fun-starved Lena brings her along to the soft launch of Agape Villas. On Naxos, the duo is drawn to an encampment on the beach near the resort where women dance and drum with "ecstatic abandon." Disgusted and irate, Drew vows to evict the "feral" group, but unbeknownst to him, something ancient is at play. Pochoda's sun-drenched, blood-soaked literary fever dream pits hubris against hedonism, likens religion to rave culture, and explores the transformative power of female rage. Incandescent prose, present-tense narration, and frequent perspective shifts impart urgency, rendering the characters' passions palpable. It's a gleefully transgressive tour de force. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (June)

Booklist Review

A year after the sudden death of her controlling husband, former dancer Lena travels to Naxos, Greece, with her equally controlling adult son; Drew, his pregnant wife; Jordan; and Lena's freewheeling best friend, Hedy, to celebrate the opening of Agape Villas, Drew's luxury beachside resort. Long accustomed to the constraints of upper-class life, Lena hopes to recapture some of the youthful freedom she once shared with Hedy, for whom the party never ended. But the domineering Drew insists that the pair stay away from the beach, whose serene views have been blighted by the presence of women in tents. Drew's orders only pique Lena's curiosity, and one night she joins the women, quickly finding herself swept into a heady world of intrigue and desire. Pochoda's (Sing Her Down, 2023) lyrical and dreamlike latest is a contemporary horror reimagining of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae, perfect for fans of Greek retellings and novels that explore feminine rage and empowerment, like Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch (2021) or Kirsten Miller's The Change (2022).

Kirkus Book Review

Wealthy owners of a luxury hotel on a Greek island run afoul of a cult of wild women living on the beach. Pochoda's venture into dark horror is a clunky revision ofThe Bacchae revolving around four women and one uptight male jerk. Lena is the wealthy widow of a Greek hotel developer who died under suspicious circumstances on the site of his unfinished Agape Villas. Her son, Drew--as rigid, controlling, and misogynist as his father--has completed the project and now brings Lena; her best friend, Hedy; and his own pregnant wife, Jordan, to the island for a kind of soft opening where they will be the only guests. Already in situ is Luz, a former powerful drug dealer who did time in prison when her son turned her in to save his own hide; this backstory is the only remnant of the kind of book Pochoda has been so successful with in the past. Luz has become the leader of a group of women who live on the beach that adjoins the Agape property. Their nightly revels revolve around a DJ named BaXXus who has golden blood and takes the form of a mountain lion during sex, one of the various versions of "ecstasy" that may make this book off-putting to some readers. Also unpleasant are the constant expressions of revulsion for the aging female body. Drew on Lena: "Here's his goddamn mess of a mother at last. Look at the state of her. That fucking caftan hiding fucking nothing. 'Mom.' To think that morning he'd thought of her as anything more than a saggy fifty-four-year-old ex-ballerina." Lena feels about the same about her "worn," "desiccated," and "weathered" body, once so lithe and lovely (54 seems to be the new 94 here). At the heart of the story is the idea that "we grow the monsters that take us down"--both Lena and Luz have vile, treacherous sons, and pregnant Jordan is quickly picking up the vibe. You know those Greek myths--this won't end well. Pochoda's reliance on sentence fragments and single-sentence or single-word paragraphs add to an overall hasty feel, and probably not the kind of horror the author intended. A hot mess. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.