Excerpt from The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Their second power over suffering was, in a sense, to sculpt it—to reveal it in Heaven only as it was seen and felt by them—as ecstasy. In Heaven, tears, sweat, and drops of blood are translated into the brilliance of stars, which form the bodies of the Heaven Dwellers. The gods would not let Ophiuchus tamper with suffering, that radiant and exquisite state of being.

In Heaven, there was not one pair of happy lovers. There were Perseus and Andromeda, if you count a couple happy who killed a guest at their wedding. Besides, they lived apart in Heaven; and it made me uneasy to see Andromeda, a wife still wearing the glittering chains that had bound her on her rock. There was another pair who truly loved each other, but they were allowed to meet only one day a year, before they were separated to begin another year's yearning. I felt confined there, and unhappy. What woman wants to live in a Heaven where love can only be tragic, unfulfilled for all eternity?

I don't say that Heaven was without passions: in fact, it was through my fleeing Orion that the revelation occurred. I was always afraid of him, knowing what everyone knew about him: that he was empty of all but lust. He had practiced the sexual lynching known as rape on Merope and others, and his last mortal act had been a biocide. He could not control his appetite to kill, and had hunted down every last living thing in a forest where the goddess Artemis refreshed herself from time to time. He piled corpse after corpse outside her lodging. He presumed to kill as if he were a God. For that presumption Artemis had the mortal killed in a display of divine artistry. Yet, the gods awarded him an influential position in Heaven.

He spent his time in Heaven stalking the Pleiades; one afternoon, he caught sight of me, and decided I would do just as well. I was walking by myself along the shining river Eridanus, lost in my own dreams, hearing and seeing nothing else. Suddenly Orion leapt in front of me, blocking my path. His eyes were narrow and glinting, with the odd fixed gaze of the possessed, who see nothing but what they desire from whatever exists.

I turned and began to run. I could hear Orion strike out after me, though I dared not turn to look. It was like being pursued by a massive oak tree that could move as swiftly as the wind through its own leaves, and was also carrying a weapon. I knew he would shoot me with his bow and arrows to bring me down. Blinded, wounded, crippled—it wouldn't matter to him how he took me, or if I survived, as long as he succeeded in attaining his desire.

I screamed, but the scream metamorphosed in Heaven, and made a trio of the sublime duet that Aphrodite and Eros were singing, charmed at Orion's ardor, and the lovely patterns my long hair made streaming in flight behind me as I raced for my life. Later, I learned that Aphrodite had sent a dream of this scene to a Macedonian artist, who rendered it in relief on a gold vase, though he altered it to show Orion capturing me, as I screamed mutely and exquisitely in pure gold.

In the end, though, I escaped. I saw no other course than to fling myself into Eridanus, the flowing river of stars, and let the swift current drown me or take me where it would. Even Orion could not keep up with Eridanus, and I heard his marvelous aria of psychopathic rage as I was swept farther and farther away.

The river rushed me past constellation after constellation; I closed my eyes, and let myself be carried along, and thought of nothing, not even how I might find some exit from this flood of stars.

When I opened my eyes again, still submerged in the river of light, I saw a group of strange constellations. I recognized nothing of this zodiac. One cascade of stars formed the Cluster of Grapes, another the Sheaf of Wheat. There was the Hive where Honey Bees swarmed, entering and exiting like the dust of topaz and amber. I saw the Carpenter measuring the Door with a rope of stars. Beside him, the Birthgiver suckled the Newborn with her gemmed milk, while the Cradle swung, lighting the dark.

Excerpted from The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace. Copyright © 2014 by Patricia Storace. Excerpted by permission of Pantheon, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.