The Song of Achilles, By Madeline Miller

Others before Miller have written imaginative riffs on Homer's epics, not least Margaret Atwood in her witty and wise The Penelopiad. Yet Miller's fantastic first novel – shortlisted for the Orange Prize this week – seems singular in its scope and scholarship.

This is a retelling of the Illiad from the point of view of a young prince called Patroclus, exiled for accidentally killing a man, who falls head-over-heels in love with the brave Achilles.

Miller, an American classics expert, has combined scholarship with imagination to turn the most familiar of war epics into a fresh, emotionally riveting and sexy page-turner.

Patroclus follows Achilles into war, but it is their magnificent and very modern love story that makes this an epic.