As an English major a Catholic liberal arts school, I was required to take a semester-long class on John Milton, in which we read the entirety of Paradise Lost as well as its less well known sequel, Paradise Regained. Everyone knows the plot of Paradise Lost: Satan rebels in Heaven! He tempts Adam and Eve and thrusts humanity into sin! Drama! Fireworks! Fallen angels! Fewer people could tell you the plot of Paradise Regained, which is about Jesus being tempted in the desert. Unlike his more bombastic Infernal counterpart, the Miltonian Jesus is a prototypical modern hero: reserved, inwardly-focused, full of doubt. There’s something to be appreciated there, of course, but when it comes to Milton, people gravitate toward Satan for a reason. Which is that he’s cool as hell (pun intended).
Read an Excerpt From Cassandra Rose Clarke’s The Beholden
Fantasy || Two sisters, a pregnant aristocrat and a scholar-magician, and themselves at the center of a conflict between the immortal being Decay and the Emperor himself.
