Audio: Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell

Author John Wiswell

Narrated by Christian Black, Elizabeth Klett

Publication date Jun 17, 2025 by Tantor

Running time 14 hrs

Historical fiction/fantasy

Heracles never really gets to be the big hero here. He is mostly a broken man, suffering from PTSD and walking around doing his heroic things. But instead of doing it with violence he finds that even monsters needs to be saved.

It is narrated via him and her. His voice is always so calm, always praying to Hera. Then there is Hera who is more modern, and I frankly liked that. She is angry with her husband, and with Heracles who is always praying.

So...yes stuff happens. He falls apart and goes to kill monsters, but he is too broken for that even. So instead he builds himself a new family without even realising.

As for Hera, I could not hate her at all, I mean obvi, dang woman! But she is so broken too by actions that she did not mean to happen. I liked her, she had quite the mouth and she was so frustrated all the time,

Good narration, that calm male voice and a more highstrung female one.

Heracles, hero of Greece, dedicates all his feats to Hera, goddess of family. Heracles’ mother raised him to revere Hera, as her attempt to avoid the goddess’ wrath. Unbeknownst to Heracles, he is yet another child Hera’s husband, Zeus, had out of wedlock.

Hera loathes every minute of Heracles’ devotion. She finally snaps and sends the Furies to make Heracles kill himself. But the moment Heracles goes mad, his children playfully ambush him, and he slays them instead. When the madness fades, Heracles’s wife, Megara, convinces him to seek revenge. Together they’ll hunt the Furies and learn which god did this.

Believing Hera is the only god he can still trust, Heracles prays to Hera, who is wracked with guilt over killing his children. To mislead Heracles, Hera sends him on monster-slaying quests, but he is too traumatized to enact more violence. Instead, Heracles cares for the Nemean lion, cures the illness of the Lernaean hydra, and bonds with Crete’s giant bull.

Hera struggles with her role in Heracles life as Heracles begins to heal psychologically by connecting with the monsters—while also amassing an army that could lay siege to Olympos.