Saint follows up her lovely debut Ariadne with another retelling of Greek mythology...This time Saint tackles one of the best-known stories from Greek mythos—the fall of Troy and the subsequent repercussions—by following three pivotal women...In Troy, Cassandra longs for Apollo to grant her the gift of foresight, but when she refuses to have sex with him, he curses her...She will become the most powerful seer in history, but no one will ever believe a word she says...In the future, Elektra, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s daughter, grapples with her father’s bloody choices and her mother’s constant anger, though she finds her father more sympathetic than her mother...She wants to escape the curse that plagues the House of Atreus, of kin murdering kin generation after generation, but she wonders if it’s possible to break free of destiny...As gorgeously written as her debut, this feminist historical fantasy is a must-read for anyone who enjoys Greek mythology.
Saint's electrifying follow-up to Ariadne tells the story of some of the most iconic women of Greek mythology...The toll of the Trojan War, the unfeeling gaze of the gods, and the power-hungry violence of men all fall disproportionately on the shoulders of these women, and Saint's vivid writing brings their pain, love, and grief to the page in short, intense chapters that make the novel difficult to put down...It's an emotion-laden story of revenge and rage driven by loss and fills a gap by giving Clytemnestra a voice...Both readers who know the Greek myths well and readers who only know glimmers of the story will enjoy this new, epic retelling.
Saint returns with a brilliant feminist revision of the Greek myth of the House of Atreus...As in the Aeschylus plays, the lives of three powerful women intersect through war and vengeance: Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen of Troy; Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon; and Elektra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon...In alternating chapters, each woman relays her own story and is treated to generous and bold character development...The author also does a splendid job managing the timeline, with rich and sustained scenes and seamless jumps...Out of a canonical myth, Saint has built a commanding story of rebellious women.
The novel is told from the first-person points of view as these three women, and, at first, trying to sort out all the names and family histories, however familiar, feels like the homework assignment it once was...But with the pieces in place, author Saint animates the three women and sets them off...Clytemnestra, the most fully realized, propels the narrative forward with a fresh, raw depth of emotion for a story that's been told through the ages...Elektra's and Cassandra's sections can feel repetitive, but they tend to be shorter, which quickens the pace...Together, these voices show how three very different women understand family, the costs of war, and how to exercise their power...Royals, revenge, curses, and prophecies done right.
