Do you love Greek mythology? Have you ever wondered what the women in those stories really went thought or what the wives of the men that went off on those epic battles through while their men were gone? Then you need to run out and grab this book immediately. This book will added a new level to those stories, but even if you are not the biggest fan you will still find enjoyment in reading this book due to the basic subject matter. I do highly recommend this book to all readers. It has heart wrenching romance, heartbreak, edge of your seat suspense and bloody action scenes.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Natalie Haynes is one of my favorite authors for Greek Mythology retellings. This book takes a look at the view of the Trojan War from the women who were a part of it. From the women whose husbands fought and died in the war, to the Goddesses who started it all.

Haynes' prose is beautiful and poignant. It brings to life a story that is thousands of years old and has been told a thousand different ways. If you liked the trilogy retelling by Pat Barker, you will love this book. I highly recommend readers look at her other books as well!

I went into this one because honestly I was this kid who devoured Hercules and Xena and then went looking for the literature. Of course the literature vs the tv is kind of a letdown. The literature was so male centered. And inordinately missing perspectives that obviously mattered. In enters our story.

Told from the perspective of different women living during the time of the Trojan War, Thousand Ships in storied chapters gives the other side. You hear Helen tell you about the men fighting over her. Athena, Artemis, and Hera tell their side of the story of what it meant to be a Greek God. And all more. Giving voices to these women, you learn more about the wars beginnings and the aftermath as well.

So this definitely what. I was expecting. That's okay. I kind of have mixed feelings. On one hand, because I loved some of the characters already, I was on board to hear more of them. I loved some of the wit and humor that Haynes was able to imbibe into her characters. On the other hand, I wish there had been a little more order to the stories. I mean this is supposed to be following the Trojan War. And I got lost sometimes at when we were as readers supposed to be with a character. That wasn't a huge amount of fun.

Beyond that, I did rather like this. I did kind of wish some more was given to certain characters but that is a person preference. Thanks for the ARC!

Many books about the Trojan war focus on the men, the heroes like Achilles, Hector & Odysseus and their great battles to take back Helen. Natalie Haynes book A Thousand Ships focuses on the women of the Trojan war beginning with the fall of Troy through the aftermath of the Greek ships leaving for home. Haynes manages to cram so many female stories into this book, Trojan, Greek, mortals, & immortals that it really shouldn't work and should be so confusing that you can keep up with who is being focused on but each character, whether a minor one with a lone chapter (Iphigenia & Penthilisea come to mind) or many (Hecabe, former queen of Troy & Penolope, peevishly writing letters to her wayward husband Odysseus) but it all works to create a major story of what happens to the women after their worlds are shattered, good and bad. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes retellings of Greek myths.

Thanks to NetGalley & Harper for the free ebook of this title.

A Thousand Ships is a rich and detailed imagining of the Trojan War and its aftermath through the perspective of the women whose lives were often forever changed in it. The asides between each point of view showing the struggles of the poet and his muse help to demonstrate the struggle faced when trying to find sufficient information about such women to build a story. With beautiful writing and intense settings, this book was a great return to my childhood love of mythology with less of the rose coloured glasses I wore then.

I absolutely loved this book! The story really sucked me in and I could not put this down. It was refreshing to read about the Trojan War through the perspective of the women involved. Usually the women involved in stories about war are overlooked and they remain background characters and are briefly mentioned, but this was an amazing story about how a man's war impacted their lives. I can't to see what else Natalie writes next!

With an interesting premise, and great references to ancient greek mythology- this is a book that readers interested in that topic will love.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me. All opinions are my own.
Recommended for fans of Madeline Miller.
Engaging read providing a new perspective on the women of the Trojan War. With changes of perspective and character in each chapter, the book takes a bit of time to settle into. Mythology is difficult to make new and exciting, since it's been around forever, and this title isn't hardly the most refreshing take on the Greek myths. However, it is a nice addition to the familiar stories.

This was an interesting retelling about the women of the Trojan War. There were stories about the women that it felt like more of an anthology than a novel. Still, I recommend this for fans of Madeline Miller, Margaret George, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

This is a painful book to read, but beautifully written. The women who were used during the Trojan War are finally allowed to air their anger and to be people rather than plots.

And I still hate Odysseus.

This was an interesting take on the classic mythical stories most are familiar with. While I enjoyed the point of view of the women who were overlooked in these stories, I didn't see the point of the constant return to the muse. For me it was a disruptive flow of the book.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes is a book for lovers of Greek mythology who are ready for a fresh, feminist perspective. Having been so often relegated to the sidelines, I am always interested to read the takes of the various women and goddesses who didn't get to take the narrative lead the first time around.

Instead of focusing on one character, like Circe, this story hops around to the various women affected during the Trojan War to great success. Though the title gives us a reference to Helen, we don't hear from her directly. Having always been a fan of The Odyssey, I enjoyed Penelope's section especially.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

I will never get tired of reading retellings of Greek mythology, especially when done from the oft overlooked female perspective, and A Thousand Ships more than delivers on that account.
The structure took me a bit longer to get used to than I would’ve liked because each chapter switches to a different character’s perspective, with some characters only getting one chapter total. This made the story hard to follow at times, but the narrative still moved forward as expected overall.

One of the characters that only got one chapter was Penthesilea of the Amazons, and was my favorite from the whole book as I am not as familiar with the Amazons in Greek mythology. My favorite lines from this chapter are: “The only requirement was that there must be a warrior skilled enough to kill her. Most men (Penthesilea was not arrogant, merely aware of her talents) did not have the capacity to beat an Amazon in combat. There was one man, however, that even the Amazons spoke of in whispers. Quicker even than them, one had heard. The fastest warrior ever to fight. And so Penthesilea took her women on the long journey south to the fabled city of Troy.” Such a badass, right?!

Overall, aside from having to settle into the book’s structure, this was a solid retelling with great writing, and I look forward to reading more of the author’s work. 4.25 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my e-copy.

Mythology being revisited is something that happens a lot. But making it unique is the hard part, and Haynes does a good job about taking this piece of mythology and bringing it to showcase in good writing. I really enjoyed this book, and the women that is puts at the center, since they are some that are forgotten when this tale of Troy is told.

The women of the Trojan War take center stage in this engrossing and clever retelling of The Iliad. It is helpful to have some knowledge of the main players of the conflict but not entirely necessary. Haynes brings many of the characters to life in an entirely new way as their rich stories unfold in the aftermath of the fall of Troy.

Surprisingly Helen, the woman who started it all, doesn't feature in the book and instead we learn of her through the anger of the women whose husbands and sons died as she holed up in their city. The star of the story for me was Penelope and her increasingly annoyed letters to her long lost husband Odysseus. A truly original and inspired take on the strong, tragic and fierce women of the Trojan War.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper for the ARC.

A Thousand Ships stands out in a rising sea of Greek retellings by taking a kaleidoscopic approach to its narrative and exploring the impact of war on ordinary people.

Recent years have seen a trend in reinventions of Greek myths and legends, some from the perspectives of women. Novels like Madeline Miller's Circe and Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls have done wonders for fleshing out and adding dimension to the library of stories from ancient Greece that we have been telling and retelling for centuries. We have even been gifted a fresh translation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson, the first-ever rendering of Homer's epic into English to be completed by a woman. Now, classicist Natalie Haynes makes a dynamic and important addition to this library with her novel A Thousand Ships.

Read the full review at BookBrowse.

I'm really a sucker for mythology in general, Greek mythology in particular. I also love retellings of myths that look at them from different perspectives, especially women's perspectives. I was ready to love this book. And I didn't hate it. But I also was disappointed in it.

Why? Most books like this focus on a specific person, Patroclus or Circe or Cassandra or Penelope. This book hopped from character to character, and as a result I didn't care too much about any of them. The scope had the effect of making the women seem less important instead of making the scope of their tragedy larger. Part of the reason for this is that the women were mostly watchers instead of actors. They witnessed the rage of Achilles, his falling out with Agamemnon, the plundering of the temples. Several young women make only one appearance in one short chapter, only to be sacrificed at the end of that chapter. Most women don't make much more than one appearance, except for the women waiting on the beach at the end of the war to be divided up as prizes. And almost all the women will die. Their deaths are needless and tragic. It would have been nice for them to have more agency, for them to have thoughts about things other than the men they'd lost and the men to whom they would be enslaved. These women never got to be themselves- they were mothers, wives, daughters, lovers but were not apart from these roles, dependent upon the decisions of men to the end.

Even Penelope, who writes letters (which could never be delivered) to her husband during his long voyage, writes about what she's heard that he's doing and tells his story all over again, not about what she herself is doing- at least not until she catches up to what the Odyssey actually discussed about her, the suitors and the weaving/unweaving. It would have been nice to see more of Penelope than what the original story told. But none of these women were given much more than what the original story told, and that original story was more interested in men.

I'd read some mixed reviews before starting this book and went in hoping that the less positive reviews were wrong. I have to say that for me, those reviews held up. This book skimmed the surface instead of delving into epic. The skimming kept any emotional resonance out of the book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately, I was not able to get in this book so I did not finish.

After being a huge fan of Circe and The Silence of the Girls, A THOUSAND SHIPS by Natalie Haynes would be right up my alley. Perhaps because I'm so familiar with this story, this book was hard to get into. It also took me a while to get orientated to the story. I felt I was thrown into the story and had to get my bearings on what was happening. Would I recommend this book? Don't let my tangent deter you. By its own merit, this is a beautiful story that will be great for all Greek mythology fans. I simply would not compare it to other works of its type, this is a story that deserves to shine in its own light.