Being a Greek god is not all it once was. Yes, the twelve gods of Olympus are alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse-and none too happy about it. And they've had to get day jobs: Artemis as a dog-walker, Apollo as a TV psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Dionysus as a DJ. Even more disturbingly, their powers are waning, and even turning mortals into trees-a favorite pastime of Apollo's-is sapping their vital reserves of strength. Soon, what begins as a minor squabble between Aphrodite and Apollo escalates into an epic battle of wills. Two perplexed humans, Alice and Neil, who are caught in the crossfire, must fear not only for their own lives, but for the survival of humankind. Nothing less than a true act of heroism is needed-but can these two decidedly ordinary people replicate the feats of the mythical heroes and save the world? Marie Phillips, a Cambridge graduate, just 30, left her research job at the BBC to work in a bookstore, publish a blog, and write her first novel, Gods Behaving Badly . Reviewers almost unanimously praise Phillips’s daring, high-concept premise and the wit and cleverness with which she recycles mythic tales and gives them a postmodern twist. Occasional complaints about forced, sitcom-worthy humor and reckless, predictable plotting creep into some of the reviews, but most critics send arrows of love her way—with nary a stab to the heart among them. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Marie Phillips was born in London in 1976. She studied anthropology at CambridgeUniversity and worked as a researcher at the BBC. More recently she worked as an independent bookseller while writing Gods Behaving Badly . Reviewed by Ron Charles Marie Phillips's first novel, Gods Behaving Badly, hovers somewhere between Pride and Prejudice and an episode of "Bewitched." I'm not complaining; I have an unusually high regard for Elizabeth Montgomery's oeuvre. And Austen got off some good lines, too. Phillips lives in London and studied anthropology at Cambridge, but now she's following that great British tradition of high-brow silliness with a story that suggests the gods must be crazy. The premise of her sentimental sex-romp is that the Greek divinities are still alive, but barely. They're holed up in a London townhouse that they bought for a song 350 years ago during the plague. But they've let it run to Hades, and there's only so much even a crafty god like Hephaestus can do when none of the others will so much as hang up a toga. As usual, these 12 unearthly, egotistical roommates bicker and complain and plot revenge. But believe me, it's a long way down from Ovid; closer to what MTV might call "The Divine World." The more you remember of Edith Hamilton's Mythology, the more you'll snicker (or groan) at all this, but even if you think Hermes is a scarf designer, don't worry: Phillips lightly fills in the necessary details along the way. Aphrodite earns money as a phone-sex worker. Artemis is a dog walker. Dionysus runs a sleazy bar. And forget Bernini's vision of Apollo pursuing Daphne as she turns into a laurel tree. Nowadays, the hunky deity cruises for sex in Hampstead Heath and routinely ravishes his half-sister in their fetid bathroom. Part of the comedy here is Phillips's musings on the state of religious faith. The gods, "terribly weakened over time," are suffering the effects of being unwanted, unneeded. People don't believe anymore, or they've fallen in with various heresies. "If it wasn't for Jesus," Artemis complains, "I'd probably still be living on Olympus, running on the hillsides." My God, even Eros has fallen under the spell of that famous carpenter. Bickering with Aphrodite, the petulant boy whines, "I wish the Virgin Mary was my mother." The only thing worse than these humiliations is the endless boredom they have to endure, and that turns out to be their Achilles heel. While taping the pilot episode of his new psychic TV show, Apollo spots a cleaning lady in the studio and falls hopelessly in love. (Eros has a hand -- or arrow -- in this, of course.) The object of Apollo's affection is Alice Mulholland, a plain, modest young woman who can't imagine why a handsome TV star would be interested in her. And besides, her heart belongs to equally virginal Neil, a geeky engineer who shares her love of crossword puzzles. On the outside, it doesn't look like a particularly fair fight: Apollo is the god of the sun; Neil is good at Scrabble. The real fun begins when Alice is hired for the Sisyphean task of cleaning the gods' house. She can't complain about the salary, but the owners are strange. "She tried not to judge them; they were Greek, after all, and all families had their own ways." Although Apollo has lots of time to woo Alice as she moves from one calamitous room to another, his technique has grown rusty over the centuries: "It is a beautiful name," he tells her, "especially considering that it contains the