The Odyssey of Phoebe Quilliam

By Author / Illustrator

Annelise Gray

Genre

Myths & Legends

Age range(s)

Publisher

Zephyr

ISBN

9781035911011

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

11-09-2025

Synopsis

A mythical timeslip story about family, love, loss and memory, with an epic sea voyage at its heart, inspired by the legend of Odysseus.

Phoebe dreams of becoming an artist like her grandmother, Cass, a brilliant storyteller who has passed on her love of Greek myths to Phoebe. But Cass is disappearing before Phoebe's eyes, lost to a cruel illness that is destroying her memory. When Phoebe ruins Cass's seascape inspired by childhood holidays on the Greek island of Ithaca, she is mysteriously swept away to a fantasy world that resembles her favourite myth of all - The Odyssey.

There Phoebe is caught up in a young boy's mission to find his long-lost father - a shipbuilder to King Odysseus, last seen going off to fight in the Trojan War - and faces an epic quest of her own. To seek the shape-shifting monster whose ravenous and growing power may hold the key to Phoebe fighting her own demons. Only by defeating the monster and facing her fears, will she have any hope of finding her way home and back to Cass.

'Truly original' English 4 - 11 Magazine. 'A fantastic mythical, timeslip adventure' Juno Magazine.

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Reviews

Sue

Phoebe has inherited her love of art and stories from her grandmother, Cass, spending much time with her in the sunny studio where they paint and share Greek myths. But Cass is struggling to remember things and has to go into a home. When Cass's home is sold, Phoebe pays it one last visit and is swept into a strange adventure. Finding herself on a beach in Greece, she meets Leander, a boy who is on a quest to find out what happened to his father, one of King Odysseus's shipbuilders, after the Trojan Wars. She also meets Hattie, her grandmother's childhood friend, who sets Phoebe on a quest of her own - to defeat a monster and find her own way home.

This is a one-sitting read! Engaging from the first page, The Odyssey of Phoebe Quilliam combines a thrilling adventure story with the poignant worries of a child coping with dementia in a loved one. Like many children, Phoebe takes on worries which should not be hers, in this case, believing that she is responsible for her grandmother's decline, that she should have told her mother that Cass was forgetting things. The close bond she and Cass share is beautifully captured, making both her grandmother's decline and Phoebe's feelings of guilt and loss all the more touching.

The family is also dealing the the loss of Phoebe's father, who died whilst on a rescue for the RNLI, and the fact that Cass has no memory of this, believing her son to still be alive, only adds to the family's pain. This all makes the story sound very bleak - but it isn't. Phoebe's personal circumstances frame her adventure which is full of hope and healing… and action and adventure. And there is plenty of action and adventure!

Against a background of Greek myth, Phoebe and Leander embark on their quests, finding support and comfort in one another as they face dangers and dilemmas, overcoming their own fears and finding their way home once more. There are plenty of monsters, an epic sea voyage, excitement and peril in this imaginative and engrossing book! The perfect candidate for story time selection, this book would make an excellent class read, engaging children with Greek myths and offering plenty to discuss and enjoy.

240 pages / Reviewed by Sue Wilsher, teacher

Jacqueline

Phoebe loves art and drawing and wants to be an artist like her beloved grandmother. But her grandmother is getting more and more forgetful and Phoebe can't help wondering if it is somehow her fault that things are deteriorating so quickly. In a fit of anger, she lashes out at one of her grandmother’s paintings and finds herself on the Greek Island of Ithaca, a place her grandmother has told her all about alongside the Greek Myths. There, Phoebe meets a boy waiting for Odysseus to return with his father and the rest of the army he set sail with when the boy was just a baby. The boy and Phoebe have to face monsters before their stories can be resolved.

I really enjoyed the Circus Maximus series by Annelise Gray and so I was looking forward to reading The Odyssey of Phoebe Quilliam. It is completely different as it is a fantasy, but also a historical one, based on real places. I loved Geek myths as a child and that love has remained, so this book was right up my street.

The story is pacy and very exciting and the monsters utterly terrifying, but it all weaves together in a very satisfactory way, marrying past and present. I was particularly interested in the portrayal of dementia and the impact on a grandchild. I thought the portrait of the grandmother to be very sympathetic and it rings true. Nothing happens instantly and the gradual decline is shown in such a way as to allow the reader to get to grips with it as Phoebe does.

Lilitt Wang has designed a striking cover, using bold colours and making the main characters look suitably small in the huge adventure they are undertaking.

I really enjoyed this book; it has everything you could want from an adventure story but with more depth to the back story. I think Upper KS2 children will really enjoy it too and it will add very nicely to the ancient Greek history that is studied then.

240 pages / Reviewed by Jacqueline Harris, teacher