Daughters of Sparta—thank you to NetGalley for the review copy—purports to tell the stories of Helen and Klytemnestra, daughters of king Tyndareos and queen Leda of Sparta. Dual alternating third person narrators follow the sisters chronologically from childhood through the end of the Trojan war, including their marriages, experiences with childbirth and motherhood, and war years.

Heywood leaves the gods out of the story, other than as vague powers to whom characters refer, in this sense taking a quasi-historical/materialist/psychoanalytic rather than fantasy approach to the Trojan war myth. The choices she makes to achieve this approach toward the characters and their experiences are interesting to think about, and her prose is engaging. I believe this novel will find an enthusiastic audience among readers who enjoy modern women’s narratives dressed in ancient Greek costumes.

The book focuses exclusively on Helen and Klytemnestra’s points of view. Because this focus meant the majority of the story was internal monologue of the women’s thoughts and feelings about their experiences, the third person narrative felt jarring, as compared to the intimacy of first person. I wondered if the intention was to bestow a sense of universality on these two women’s experiences. If so, it didn’t quite work. Heywood’s tendency to project modern worldviews and resentments into the past amplified the disconnect between narrative style and characters. It also felt reductive, as it stripped the myths and the various ways they were told across antiquity of their complexities, paradoxes, and ambivalent meanings.

This novel and I got off on the wrong foot with the epigraph, before the story even had a chance to properly begin. Heywood includes a quote from the Odyssey: “For there is nothing in this world so cruel and so shameless as a woman when she has fallen into such guilt as hers was […]/[…] her abominable crime has brought disgrace on herself and all women who shall come after—even on the good ones.”

As it is the presented, the quote seems to express the view of “Homer” in “the Odyssey.” But the quote is so decontextualized and chopped up as to be denuded of its meaning. If you’ve read the Odyssey, you might recall that the above words appear in book eleven as part of a speech by Agamemnon delivered post-mortem, from Hades, as he explains to Odysseus how he died.

Here is Agamemnon’s full reply (Richmond Lattimore’s translation, underlines are mine to correspond with what Heywood extracts from, if I’m not mistaken, Emily Wilson’s translation):

“Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus,/not in the ships, nor did Poseidon, rousing a storm blast/of battering winds that none would wish for, prove my destruction,/nor on dry land did enemy men destroy me in battle;/Aigisthos, working out my death and destruction, invited me to his house, and feasted me, and killed me there,/with the help of my sluttish wife, as one cuts down an ox at his manger./So I died a most pitiful death, and my other companions/were killed around me without mercy, like pigs with shining/tusks, in the house of a man rich and very powerful,/for a wedding, or a festival, or a communal dinner./You have been present in your time at the slaughter of many men, killed singly, or in the strong encounters of battle;/but beyond all others you would have been sorry at heart/for this scene, how we lay sprawled by the mixing bowl and the loaded/tables, all over the palace, and the whole floor was steaming/with blood; and most pitiful was the voice I heard of Priam’s/daughter Kassandra, killed by treacherous Klytaimestra/over me; but I lifted my hands and with them beat on the ground as I died upon the sword, but the sluttish woman/turned away from me and was so hard that her hands would not/press shut my eyes and mouth though I was going to Hades’./So there is nothing more deadly or vile than a woman/who stores her mind with acts that are of such sort, as this this one/did when she thought of this act of dishonor, and plotted/the murder of her lawful husband. See, I had been thinking/that I would be welcome to my children and the thrills of my household/when I came home, but she with thoughts surpassingly grisly/splashed the shame on herself and the rest of her sex, on women/still to come, even on the one whose acts are virtuous.” Book 11.405-434

Odysseus replies, “Shame it is, how most terrible Zeus of the wide brows/from the beginning has been hateful to the seed of Atreus/through the schemes of women. Many of us died for the sake of Helen,/and when you were far, Klyaimestra plotted treason against you.” Lines 436-439

There is more going on in this (comparatively) brief quote than I can account for here, but a few noteworthy points as they relate to Daughters of Sparta are as follows. First, obviously, the translations themselves are quite different: Through both the translation and Heywood’s extraction of it from its context, much of the nuance has been stripped out of the source text that has come down to us from antiquity, as evident in “good ones” (meaning women) vs. women “whose acts are virtuous.” It may not seem important, but the latter differentiates between women sum total being bad and bad acts that some women may perform. One thing this may reflect is the recognition of coexisting dualities, especially in Homer but also evident across ancient Greek thought. A particular quality, cunning for example, could be deployed for good or bad ends. Cunning itself is not necessarily inherently either good or bad but can become so through its application. Alternately, rather than morally neutral qualities, the modern Western mind especially (though not exclusively) tends to bifurcate, creating discrete categories for good and bad and then assigning qualities accordingly (honesty and cunning respectively, for example).

Aside from translation, within the Homeric world, Agamemnon has a reputation for hoarding all the rewards and honors for himself and attributing all of his bad behavior to the gods’ will. Further, as those who know Trojan war myth (including, presumably, the earliest hearers of the Odyssey) are aware, Odysseus will himself slaughter a dining hall full of Penelope’s suitors. These complicate Agamemnon’s words. Unlike Agamemnon, Odysseus will not stride confidently home expecting honors but sneak back into the palace in humble disguise. Odysseus will not be the dead man sprawled on the floor of the banquet hall. He will be the killer not the killed. He will survive because he will not make the same mistakes as Agamemnon.

All this is to say, Agamemnon’s claims about women in the speech Heywood pulls from are not coming from a reliable narrator. Odysseus’ response to Agamemnon is revelatory. He notes that the “schemes of women” are vehicles through which Zeus’ will is accomplished. If Agamemnon is not to blame for his bad acts because they were willed by the gods (as he claims in the Iliad), then why should he blame Klytemnestra for her bad acts? Would not they, too, be the will of the gods? Again, those who know Trojan war myth will know that the Trojan and Theban wars were, according to Hesiod, how Zeus chose to bring the Age of Heroes to an end. In this context, could Agamemnon blaming not only Klytemnestra but all women be seen as somewhat impious, a denial of how the gods work their will through humans? Agamemnon has also been known to compare himself to Zeus (Iliad 19.95), and his ancestors’ impiety has caused the entire family line to be cursed (as alluded by Odysseus).

This brings up one of my main issues with Daughters of Sparta: By removing the gods from the story entirely as agents, Heywood removes a prime mover within the Homeric narrativer. This accords with some modern views, but it denies an important feature (among others) of the myths, which is that they existed to explain the human condition, and central to this condition was a dynamic between immortal power and mortal bodies. What differentiates gods from humans in the mythical world is that the gods are more powerful and eternal. Thus humans, being weaker and mortal, can become instruments through which gods achieve their ends. A powerful wind can change a navy’s plans, for example, putting it on a disastrous course. The cycles of nature dictate farming and harvesting. And so on. In the Iliad, Helen gets pushed around and threatened by Aphrodite, who wishes Paris to be rewarded for having chosen her as the “most beautiful” and engineers events accordingly. Klytemnestra becomes the instrument through which Agamemnon is punished by the gods, for various offenses. Heywood tells us these two women were blamed, but ancient sources are far more nuanced. In the Iliad, Helen blames herself, but the Trojans do not. Not so in Heywood. Her Trojans despise Helen for having brought destruction to their gates.

Without the gods, Heywood relies on modern psychoanalysis to explain characters’ behaviors and feelings in ways that can feel not only reductive but at times a bit silly. One cringe-worthy scene involves Helen spitting on and kicking a rock in the cave of the goddess of Eilithyia, where Menelaos has brought her in hopes of having another child. But Helen does not want more children because of her disastrous experiencing giving birth to her daughter Hermione. Does it make sense that Helen would spit at and kick the sacred rock of the goddess of childbirth if she were afraid of giving birth? The cringe continues with Helen feeling more and more powerful as her birth control trumps this absent god. While this kind of female empowerment through control of the fertility process may inspire delight in modern readers, it rings false in this setting, if for no other reason than control of the fertility process is not a modern invention. It already existed in the ancient world. Why would Helen not see it as a gift from Eilithyia in answer to her prayers?

Heywood’s Agamemnon obsesses about winning “glory,” which is accurate broadly speaking. But without the interplay between mortality and immortality that exists in epic, the concept of kleos—what Homeric heroes fight for—loses its meaning and the heroes their motivation. What these heroes were trying to win was not some vague, undifferentiated “glory” but immortality through song (the aforementioned kleos). They want to be remembered and, through memory, to achieve a kind of immortality. Heywood chooses not to engage with the desire to be remembered as a genuine concern of humans. Her Agamemnon gloats that he was able to rally “all of Greece” by giving them “a cause”: “let them tell themselves they’re fighting for Greece, or liberty, or…whatever, and they’ll jump at the chance for some action.” Men just want to run around killing and dying in violent conflicts, apparently. For what reason?

Similarly, the East/West divide that Heywood seems to take for granted appears to have been murkier than she seems to assume. The ancient Greek-speaking world was not just on the European landmass, meaning I don’t know that all Greek speakers would have seen themselves or been seen as “western” (as is still true today of some Greeks). The highly fractured and antagonistic city-states within the ancient Greek-speaking world did not always side with each other in conflicts with non-Greek-speaking empires. Rivalries and antagonism surely existed, among Greek speakers and between Greek and non-Greek speakers, but ancient people did not have the same beliefs and biases as do modern nations, though they would surely have had their own.

In the interest of keeping this review shorter than the book, I will mention one last disconnect of significance: the pervasiveness of individualistic thinking that feels out of step with the ancient Greek world. Helen, who Heywood seems to have chosen to represent women who do not want to have children, mopes that she wishes for a husband who “might want her for herself alone, and not for the children she could give him.” This statement reflects an “individual in/vs. society” kind of thinking that feels more Western European post-Enlightenment than ancient Greek. It’s hard to imagine ancient people thinking of themselves in such individualistic terms. Male heirs had a practical purpose that Heywood seems aware of via Klytemnestra’s narrative: to project strength to potential enemies pondering violence against a community. This is not to say that ancient women might not want something other than to be wives and mothers or that every woman would want to have children, but to think of themselves as distinct from the communities they belonged to and exempt from implicit threats…this feels very modern. Helen wanting a different role within her community or wanting more roles for women to exist within the community would have made more sense than for her to be thinking about her individual relationship with her husband separate from its consequences on her community.

Similarly, at one point, the third person narrator asks, “What did men ever sacrifice for the sake of a woman?” If Heywood feels this way about men and/or this has been her experience of them, I am genuinely saddened, but I cannot say this is my understanding of men, that they act always and only for their own sakes. Again, this feels like a very modern expression of gender-based competition and/or antagonism. My experience as a Greek woman and of Greek women is that men and women have, historically, seen themselves as belonging to and being responsible for each other and have fought for each other in whatever ways they could to preserve, when possible, their families and communities. I do not believe it is fair or helpful to claim otherwise, nor do I believe that acknowledging this means we cannot also acknowledge the existence of gender discrimination and violence.

The cover of Daughters of Sparta advertises: “Two sisters parted. Two women blamed. Two stories reclaimed.” It’s probably fairly obvious at this point how I feel about the trope of contemporary women declaring that they are “reclaiming” ancient Greek women’s stories. Obviously, fiction writers can retell myths any way they choose. Personally, I wish they would not promote these retellings as some sort of reclamation project. I wish we would stop erasing ancient women so that we can claim to have discovered them. The reason we know about their stories is because they were told in antiquity, sometimes in more sensitive and nuanced ways than they are told today.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this book or these issues with retellings in the comments. Respectful debate and/or suggested readings are also welcome!

A Mild Retelling of the Heroines of the Trojan War

Sisters Helen and Klytemnestra, daughters of Lord Tyndaroes, King of Sparta, are famous in Greek mythology and tragedy for their roles in the Trojan War. Klytemnestra, married to Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, was wed first. Helen, supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world, was married to his brother Menelaos. In the book Helen thinks this will be a wonderful idea because as sister-in-laws she and Klymnestra may be able to see each other. As the narrative unfolds this turns out to be a vain hope.

The girls were raised in luxury, but little was expected of them aside from spinning, weaving and giving birth to an heir. This was a boring existence and Helen eventually escaped with Paris to a hopefully more fulfilling life. It led to the tragedy of the Torjan War.

The plot of the book is well known. The portrayal of the characters is at the core of this book. The author tries to make them examples of Bronze Age women. They come across as placid and accepting of the fate they have been dealt. This was not the way myth portrayed the sisters. Helen was a temptress and Klyemnestra was the raging mother set on revenging the death of her daughter Ipigenia, sacrificed by Agamemnon.

The book was well written and not difficult to read, but I was disappointed by the characters. Both sisters came across as so mild as to be non-existent, not at all they way they are portrayed in tragedy. The moving back and forth between the sisters giving their thoughts on whatever was happening was tedious. I had high hopes for this book, but they weren’t fulfilled.

I received this book from Penguin Random House for this review.

Thoughts are dangerous if you're a woman. That's a lot of that theme in this book, which is unsurprising given the setting. I found myself identifying with both heroines throughout their struggles. Obviously, there were choices they made that I wouldn't have made...or is that true? The fact that I'm asking that question makes the story succeed.

It's not overly-prose-y, but it is beautifully written. It's easy to follow and understand, more so if you're familiar with the myths. It's not a specifically happy book, but it's not a true tragedy, either. I would categorize it as hopeful, I think. When you read a story like this, it's meant to sit with you and I think this one does.

The characters were vibrant and passionate. They mention the Gods and sacrifices and prayers, but we never interact with these bigger-than-life deities. They are prevalent in the story, though. It's really a tale about searching for personal happiness when your decisions may not be entirely your own.

I'd honestly read a follow-up by this author. She put time and effort and thought into what these figures could have been thinking and feeling and if that was the goal: success!

After finishing A Thousand Ships back in March, I’ve found my interest in the myths and legends of Ancient Greece has remained steady – as has my wavering on whether I want to take a stab at reading The Iliad or The Odyssey. When I saw that Claire Heywood had a new novel, Daughters of Sparta releasing soon, I jumped at the chance to preview another book looking at the Trojan War from a female perspective. Focused on Klytemnestra and Helen, Daughters of Sparta examines the expectations placed on women, how that impacted their sense of self, and how often women are blamed (and punished) for the actions of men.

Klytemnestra always knew, accepted, and welcomed her role as oldest daughter. She looked forward to the day that she would marry and become a wife, mother, and eventually Queen of Sparta. In the meantime, she helped look after her younger sister, Helen. While breathtakingly beautiful even as a child, Helen never quite mastered tasks like spinning and weaving and the prospect of marriage and motherhood was always daunting and elusive. When the time comes for Klytemnestra to wed, there’s a change in plans and instead of remaining in Sparta, she must leave for Mycenae where she will be Agamemnon’s queen while Helen stays behind as Sparta’s future queen. Though the sisters end up married to brothers, they never see one another in person again but their lives remain inextricably entwined as Helen’s struggles with her role as wife, mother and Queen of Sparta trigger repercussions that devastate Klytemnestra and challenge her own understanding of everything she thought her life and marriage would be.

So much of Daughters of Sparta is demonstrated rather than told, and it’s demonstrated through contrasts. At the heart are, of course, the two sisters and the different ways that they interact with a similar set of expectations – marry, bear and raise children, publicly display what it means to be a woman and queen. Klytemnestra embraces every aspect of those expectations and seems to take to them naturally even in the face of her nerves as she leaves home for a strange palace and kingdom that are unknown to her. Even remaining in Sparta with an established support system, Helen struggles with those same expectations. She doesn’t rebel against them or take issue with them, she just finds them difficult and frequently gives up. Helen knows she is unhappy but doesn’t have any idea what might make her happier so she just drifts until someone else makes suggestions. Klytemnestra buys into the narrative of feminine expectations and deference so deeply that she ends up as a bystander to her husband’s selfish and destructive tendencies – only to blame herself for her inaction and inadequacy after the fact.

In another set of contrasts are the sisters’ husbands, Agamemnon and Menelaos. Just as the sisters find themselves having different relationships to feminine expectations, the brothers take demonstrate somewhat different approaches to their roles as kings and men. While Agamemnon is never satisfied with what he has, constantly striving for more whether it be women, wealth, or glory, Menelaos fumbles in similar ways to Helen – especially with Helen. Both brothers hurt those around them but while Agamemnon’s destruction is frequently tied to his selfishness, Menelaos’ is often related to his ignorance and reluctance to communicate (which is, again, matched by Helen’s own similar tendencies).

It’s through contrasting the siblings with each other as well as the couples with their spouses that Heywood’s skill in the construction of this story shine through. Taking familiar characters from ancient legend and writing them in a way that feels not only fresh but relevant and modern was a difficult task to set for herself but Heywood executed it beautifully. Though the husbands play significant roles in the story, the novel is undoubtedly a story about women’s experiences. Both sisters receive blame and feel guilt over the actions of men which they had no control over. In fact, one of the most poignant scenes is when a man admits to Helen that she was just an excuse for something larger, driving home the truth that there are so many times in life women are blamed because men cannot or will not take responsibility for their own actions and desires.

**I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley.

As someone who thoroughly loves Greek mythology, I went into this book knowing quite a bit about both Helen and Klytemnestra. However, reading through their perspectives was intriguing. Being a women in Ancient Greece is not something that I wish for, but I did like to read it.

However there are a few things that kept me from completely enjoying the book. I felt more that I was reading a historical recount without the feel of the characters. It was an easy book to read and I felt that the writing was great, but the sisters felt so similar even though they went through different processes of being wives, mothers, and women in their own right. However, I did enjoy reading more about how they were raised, their relationships with their family members, and their children later on.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy Greek mythology, historical recounts, and personalization of past stories.

I've always been fascinated by Greek mythology and also by women's history. This book was a natural for me. This is pure historical fiction- gods and magic are not active in this book.

The book opens with Klytemnestra and Helen as children growing up in the Spartan palace. Quite a few historical fiction books seem to need to set the stage by having the reader first encounter the main characters as children and then have the reader watch them grow up. I don't especially enjoy this technique, and in this case I thought the author had some trouble maturing her characters. Helen, especially, seemed childish and naive for most of the book. Part of what the author was trying to show, I think, is how noble women were kept out of the public eye and were sheltered. However, as princesses, I would think that both girls would have some training in politics- knowing who the major players were in their neighboring lands, what is expected of a queen (for both girls go on to become queens), diplomacy, and how to handle the men that would become their husbands. Neither Klytemnestra nor Helen seem to have any ideas about any of this. When Helen's father allows her to choose her husband, Helen makes her pick because Menelaus is Agamemnon's brother and she hopes to be able to see her sister after they are married (Klytemnestra has married Agamemnon at her father's behest). No other reason. No one even tries to tell her that it's unlikely that her plan will work, because married women rarely travel- this comes as a surprise to Helen. Would she really not know this?

Neither girl has any friends or anyone to talk to when their husbands act in ways bewildering to these too-naive young women. Is Agamemnon having affairs? Klytemnestra isn't even sure most of the time. Helen has no idea how to have any relationship at all with Menelaus, who, to be fair, is equally stymied by the prospect of actually talking to his wife. Neither girl is at all prepared for sex with her husband. It felt more like the 1950's,when no one was allowed to talk about sex, than an era thousands of years ago when surely sex would have been seen differently (pre-Christian values and all that?).

Helen of Troy (and Sparta) is one of the most famous women in history. This author chooses to portray her as a silly young girl who thinks that because she's pretty, she deserves everything. She falls for a smoothtalking stranger because her own husband doesn't show her the appreciation she wants, and her relationship with Menelaus is dead on the vine. Helen's end of the book felt quite unlikely to me.

Klytemnestra is a "good girl" who tries to do all the right things, but is betrayed by her husband in a truly heinous way. In the end, she does rally to her revenge, but the mythic Klytemnestra, magnificent in her rage, and this book's Klytemnestra doggedly performing her queenly duties alone and hardly seeming to believe in her own plan for vengeance, seem far apart.

I guess I wanted more from both of these characters. Klytemnestra needed more fire, I thought, and Helen needed to be a bit more grown-up- she gave no thought whatsoever to what it meant to be leaving with Paris.

I did like the world itself- ancient Greece society was interesting and the background to Agamemnon and Menelaus's wives was more than I'd known. If this had been two ancient Greek women who didn't happen to be legendary, I might have liked the book more. In humanizing these women, the author diminished them even as she strove to understand what drove them.

Thank you, NetGalley, Claire Heywood, and Dutton Books for the opportunity to read this book. This book will be published on June 22nd, 2021!

The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid gave us these legendary stories about legendary men killing each other for glory and battling the gods. We see glimpses of the women behind these men. Now we are gifted with retellings that strive to give these women a voice. The Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood gives the perspective of Klytemnestra and Helen. They are the daughters of Tyndareus and Leda of Sparta. At a young age, they are married off and separated. Helen is married to Menelaos. Klytemnestra is married to Agamemnon. They have to navigate the waters of being a wife to a King in a turbulent time. In this case, the women sacrifice their happiness for the success of their husbands, and stepping out of line can result in disastrous circumstances.

Trigger Warnings: Miscarriage, Child Loss, Murder, Rape

One thing that I absolutely loved about this book is how it navigates childhood, sisterhood, marriage, and motherhood in Ancient times. Helen clearly has some elements of postpartum depression with the birth of Hermione. But also, the author does go into the fact that these women weren’t “women” when they are married and get pregnant. They are still girls. Barely teenagers and they are forced into a world where they have to submit to the will of men. Menelaos is not a cruel man…not like Agamemnon. But they are still forced into situations that they would not choose for themselves.

One thing that I didn’t like, is their personalities. Helen is the face that launched a thousand ships! She is left by her husband for the handsome, yet cowardly, Paris. And she falls a little flat. Paris is a giant tool—but we ALL know this, even in The Iliad, we know this. Give Helen something. We don’t get her side of the story, so make her LEGENDARY. It’s the same thing with Klytemnestra. She knows that her daughter is about to be sacrificed by her husband and she just lets it happen. I know, she doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, but let’s have her do something rather than just stand by as her child’s throat gets slit to appease the gods.

But overall, I was completely immersed. The author writes with wonderful ease and I did feel like the description is on point. I could visualize the palaces and the danger that lurks there. I do hope Claire Heywood writes some more mythology or fairytale retellings! She does have a knack for creating the appropriate aesthetic in the stories. I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars!

This gorgeous book. Thank you so much Netgalley, for this wonderful retelling of the Iliad told from the sisters' point of view (Clytemnestra and Helen). Similar to Silence of the Girls, this is a feminist retelling of that fabulous story of the Iliad, and how events shaped and effected them, not the main "heroes" of the Iliad. Its always nice to get another point of view, and this author did a wonderful job!

DAUGHTERS OF SPARTA by Claire Heywood tells the stories of two sister princesses who shaped the flow of history in Ancient Greece: Helen (originally of Sparta, most commonly known as Helen of Troy) and Klytemnestra, murderous wife of Agamemnon. The potential for a gripping, memorable story was immense. Like many, my understanding and knowledge of the Ancient world was based on the myths and stories written by men about men, so I was eager to read about the time and place from a different perspective. This story attempts to provide insight into what it was to be a wealthy, connected woman with tight constraints and impossible standards for appropriate behavior and what happens when the ignored, unseen, and unimportant ones are held accountable for any perceived wrong. While there are shining moments of feeling and shocking turns of events, they are few and far between. Emotion, passion, and personality are expressed in wooden words rather than shown and few if any characters truly develop as individuals that we care about and are interested in knowing more about. At times it felt as if characters were thrust randomly into the story to conform to the stories told by Homer. I wanted to like this book, having torn through books such as CIRCE by Madeline Miller, but it reads more like a history paper than it does a novel. I received an advance reader copy of this novel for my unbiased review.

What a lovely and perfect retelling definitely one worth buying and adding to any good collection of retellings

I LOVED every single page of this book. It's perfect to read after Circe, The Love Song of Achilles, and with A Thousand Ships. As a young student I studied Greek mythology and Latin, and never has it been more meaningful than in the deft hands of Heywood, who has made Helen of Troy and her sister unlikely heroines of the story where previously they were sidelined.

3.5. I love Greek mythology and disliked the movie Troy as much as the next person, so I was excited to read this from the POV of Helen and Klytemnestra who, as Heywood notes in her introduction, have bad reputations and are poorly fleshed out.

The writing is fine--though not to the caliber of Madeline Miller, as the marketing suggests--but the characterization was not as rich as I anticipated. Heywood makes Helen slightly more sympathetic in her relationship to motherhood, but she's a bit one-note in that regard. Honestly, I would have enjoyed reading more about Klytemnestra; her tumultuous relationship with her husband and family was much more appealing to me.

A fascinating imagining of what the lives of the mythic Greek figures Klytemnestra and Helen of Troy might have been. Introducing the women as young girls, taking them through marriages, childbirth, affairs, and their subservience to men in their lives. And of course, their roles in the Trojan wars. Simple, straightforward storytelling immerses you in the tale and the times.

Another reviewer mentions that the author has chosen to have major events turn on very human decisions and weaknesses, rather than blaming/crediting the gods. A welcome an interesting departure from the original tales. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed ancient Greek lit as a very young student many decades ago, too many gods, too much war, too many heroic/swaggering men. But I very much enjoyed this title and it has inspired a bit of digging back into what I’ve forgotten from my school days. Thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for a review copy.

This review contains spoilers. The ARC was granted with NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


If you are looking for a version of the Trojan War from the Iliad and the Greek dramas that is in any way romanticized, this is not the version of the story for you. Told from the points of view of Klytemnestra and Helen, sisters who were integral to the Trojan War both at Troy and home in Greece, the author portrays a time in which people believe the gods are real, but the author makes it very clear that it's really the humans in the story driving the narrative. I don't think I've ever read a version that so successfully eliminated every divine act so successfully and attributed the character and plot development to patriarchal oppression, violence, greed, and ambition. . What that takes out of the story turns out to be quite significant. Helen is not really the daughter of Zeus, come to Queen Leda in the form of a swan. She's actually the result of an implied gang rape that her parents try to cover by letting the Zeus rumor spread. As a result, Helen's mother hates the sight of her, and Helen's life choices end up cycling through trying to be loved by those who don't love her and withholding her love from those who could love her. . Paris was not given the most beautiful woman in the world because of his role in a dispute among goddesses. He's a selfish pretty boy who saw Helen as a prize rather than a person. In Margaret George's version of these events, the tragedy lies in knowing that Helen and Paris' once-in-a-lifetime ' love will eventually destroy Troy, and that Helen will regret his loss for the rest of her life. This is a traditional view, but Clare Heywood sees the real tragedy in the fact that to Helen in particular, none of this was really worth it. She eventually realizes Paris' shallowness and that the grand love was never real. She bears the brunt of the shame and blame, a position that she grows to find almost comfortable. Misery is almost safer than having her hopes up because any grasping of happiness has ended disastrously due to her own self-destructive behavior and the vices of others. Klytemnestra's contribution to the narrative is to show that being the obedient good girl to your husband doesn't make life much easier. Most versions have Agamemnon forced to sacrifice Klytemnestra's first born Iphigenia on order from the gods to receive favorable winds to Troy. However, Heywood proposes the idea that the seer who told Agamemnon "the will of the gods" was actually seeking vengeance for a wrong Agamemnon had committed against his family years earlier. Klytemnestra knows the gods have no blame in this except perhaps in not intervening. She knows her daughter's murder is the result of vengeance and Agamemnon's ambition. Her failure to forgive her husband for the loss of her child and her defiance of the "will of the gods" become much more understandable. Her reputation as the false wife and villainess crumbles.

What we are left with is one of the more historical fictionalized accounts of the Trojan War., but it' s just as tragic, because everything that unfolds is due to character flaws in those who had potential to be, even if not great, very good.

A brilliant & emotional retelling of two ancient daughters of Sparta, Helen & Klytemnestra, through the modern eyes of Classicist- turned-novelist Claire Heywood. I'll admit that I was predisposed to love this book, as a students of Classics in college and someone who also wrote a novel about Helen of Troy after a lifelong fascination with her. (Helen of Pasadena, a contemporary social satire) But Heywood's lovely and nuanced portrait of Helen, the great beauty of Greece and the face that launched a thoudanss ships, and her older and doomed sister Klytemnestra surpassed my expectations with evocative language, accurate history and an authentic emotional arc for both sisters. Fans of Madeline Miller's book will find a lot to like here. 4.5 stars

A beautifully rendered story about the siege of Troy from the point of view of Helen (yes, that Helen) of Troy and her sister, Clytemnestra. Both women given in marriage to powerful kings, Menalaus and Agememnon, respectively.

*Special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc of this title. *

Very well written and a perfect recommendation for customers and readers looking for something outside of the current trend of WWII books. There is enough forward momentum on the plot to keep readers engaged and I enjoyed the lyrical tone.

i am a huge fan of mythological retellings, and this was perfectly serviceable! it was a fast and easy read. it was mostly enjoyable, but it was nothing spectacular. i don't dislike that i read it, but it was a bit bland. there wasn't a lot of character development and it almost seemed to have a really uneven relationship with its source material. it was fun, but not revolutionary. that said, i know a whole slew of people i can recommend this to and i'm sure it will be enjoyed.

History could not find two more diverse characters then Klytemnestra and Helen of Sparta, later known as Helen of Troy. Princesses of Sparta, Klytemnestra is to be the Queen of Sparta when she marries and her father dies, but unfortunately, her father decides to marry her to Agamemnon of Mycenae, leaving Helen to become Queen of Sparta. Helen marries Agamemnon's brother Menelaos but she is not satisfied with his distant form of marriage. When a visitor from Troy steals Helen's heart, she follows him back to Troy leading to the Trojan War. A gripping tale of the lives of women in the royal court and their roles as submissive wives and brood mares, enduring the transgressions of their husbands in silence.

I adore Greek mythology retellings. This book did not disappoint. The writing style was very fluid and made for a quick and empowering read.