THE PRINCESS AND THE GOD

The Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, retold in novel form: Psyche is a princess so beautiful that she is said to rival Venus, who sends her son Cupid to punish Psyche. Cupid falls in love with her instead, and takes her to his palace as his wife. When she breaks her promise never to try to look at him during his nightly visits, Psyche is subjected to impossible labors by the ever-jealous Venus. With a naked couple making love on the cover and passages that are clearly, though not graphically, sexual, teenagers will snatch this from the YA shelves (if they find it there; the reading level is actually accessible to a middle-grade audience and the publisher pegged the book for ""il-up""). In fact, if the jacket art and implicit sensuality of the book don't get past the censors, readers will miss one of Orgel's most lyrical, compelling works, with an epic love story at its center and adventure running through it like a stream.