Let me start off by saying I did not read the first book in this trilogy. Though I was missing part of the backstory regarding why many of the gods in Olympus despised Daphne, it did not stop me from thoroughly enjoying this book— the author did a great job of filling in the gaps if needed.

The story starts off in Sparta, with Daphne training alongside her fellow Spartan warriors. After being taken to Olympus, the gods demand that Daphne win the upcoming competition so she can become Queen Helen’s Shield in order to protect her.

After earning the title, things begin to go downhill. During a peace treaty meeting of the surrounding kings, Helen and Daphne overhear a plot to murder the Princes of Troy. Daphne, with the help of her adopted parents, escape with Helen, the Trojan Princes, and the Trojan warriors with barely a moment to spare. Daphne soon finds herself trying to earn the trust of the Trojans, and soon fights alongside of them (and the Amazonian) against much of Greece.

This book is full of Greek mythology, Greek history (Helen of Troy, Trojan horse, etc), and love and betrayal. Daphne often struggles with hurting her friends/family by being true to her duties, and often abstains from telling the truth in an attempt to protect those she cares about. Family ties and friendships are broken, new allies are forged and old allegiances are tested, and then there is her complicated feelings for Apollo, the gods who want to see Daphne fail, and the matter of who her father is.

I’m a massive Greek mythology and Greek retelling fan, so this book was right up my alley. I now plan to read book one and three, and already have the entire series in my Amazon cart. This book is the perfect blend of love, angst, mythology, and history. I can’t wait to see Daphne come into her own in book three!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Blood of Troy was the perfect next book! The entire new view of some myths that we all know and love are great. I'm still not sure if I'm rooting for Apollo and Daphne though. Once you have one view of Apollo in your head, it's really hard not to see him as an butthole. I'm patiently waiting for Storm of Olympus to see how it all ends after the Trojan War.

Loved this book! It played with Greek mythology while also reimagining it! Claire Andrews does a great job of pulling things from Greek mythology and then discarding what she doesn't need to tell the story she wants to tell. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and can't wait to read Storm of Olympus!

Thank you NetGalley and Little Brown Books for providing me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All views and opinions expressed are purely my won and. not affiliated with any brand.

This was a great sequel.. Just as good as the first gook. Full of adventure and action. Such a great book!

The publisher archived the ARC on Netgalley before I could download it to my kindle, leaving me unable to read or review the book.

This novel has brilliant story telling and a fierce heroine. Daphne is the type of heroine that I love to root for because she’s ambitious and brave. This story (and the first one) are amazing retelling from a the female perspective. This is an action packed read!

Quick confession: I read this book - a sequel - without having read the book that came first.

I know, I know. An unforgivable sin. But I didn't want to pass it up when it was offered to me in exchange for a review ... even though I didn't have time to read the original before the sequel arrived.

The short version: I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it. I'm not a huge Greek mythology reader, junior high and high school English class kind of ruined it for me. BUT. I'm all for giving things a try and revisiting things I didn't necessarily love when I was "younger." So I wanted to give BLOOD OF TROY a fair chance. And I'm so glad I did!

An excellent read for fans of Greek mythology and retellings of associated stories. Even without reading the first book, I was able to latch onto the story and was admittedly pretty upset when it ended. I'm so grateful to have been offered this book for review, and I'm looking forward to picking up the first one.

I'm honestly at a loss for words in regards to how disappointed I was by this book, which is weird because I went in with super low expectations after not really loving the first one. I think that it comes from the fact that this book did so many things much better... until it didn't. The writing significantly improved in this book compared to the first one, and the pacing felt much more deliberate and less frantic. Many of the secondary characters got more time to shine, especially Helen, and I enjoyed many of this author's unique twists on the Trojan War and the Titanomachy. The focus on the politics of Olympus and the machinations instigating the Trojan War was probably my favorite thing about the book, and I loved that it took the time to give a closer look at the culture and politics of Sparta and Troy. Daphne's journey navigating both the Olympian and human squabbles was also interesting, and I appreciated the depiction of her PTSD and the real impacts the events of the previous book had on her psyche. My favorite thing from the first book was missing, though. Apollo had a much smaller presence in this story, and his relationship with Daphne was insufferable. I missed the easy banter between them a lot. So, why was I so disappointed in this book? Put simply, the ending. It felt like a rushed mess. There were so many 'shocking reveals' it made my head spin, and there are some things I still don't understand because the deliberate nature of the rest of the book was thrown out the window at the end. I'm honestly not even sure if all the things that happened in the end make any sense at all, but I'm at the point of not caring. Needless to say, I won't be picking up the third book despite enjoying most of the book quite a bit. I thought this was going to be a solid 4 star read for most of my time reading it, but the mess of an ending drops it down to 3 stars.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

Picking up from where Daughters of Sparta left off, this left me speechless from start to finish. I love the way Claire crafts her work, mixing in the origins with the modern world. Greek mythology is one of my favorites and she does it justice! I can’t WAIT for the next book. It’s all I’ll think about.

When I initially requested this, it never occurred to me that this was a sequel so I had to go get the first book before I read this. I love a good retelling of any sort of mythology so I was a big fan of this story!

Blood of Troy was absolutely fantastical! This follow up was so well written that I found myself flying through the pages, unable to put the book down, pondering what would happen next. My favorite piece of this entire story was how believable the characters were.

The writing is clear and clean, and very immersive. The book hums along at a good clip, but the pacing makes sure we're given time to breathe between plot-intensifying moments. The story was absolutely engaging and the work that went into the settings was noticeable and superb. I felt absolutely transported and I'm so incredibly glad I was able to read an arc of this story.

Blood of Troy is the sequel to Claire Andrew's Daughter of Sparta series, and it is everything I want in a sequel. Not only do I continue to adore Daphne and her determination to prove herself as not just equal to but better than her fellow male soldiers, but I ship her relationship with Apollo. In this case, I also appreciate Ms. Andrews' take on the Helen of Troy story. No longer is it about Helen's beauty starting a war but rather about two war-mongering leaders who only care about war and the loot they could obtain from war. It is a modern and feminist take on a classic story, complete with a relook at the Trojan Horse and the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus involved in the war. With the introduction of yet more players within Daphne's life, I can't wait to see where Ms. Andrews takes Daphne's story next.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for a review. All thoughts are my own.

This is a hard series for me to rate and review. On the one hand, I really love Greek mythology. On the other hand, I don’t think these are the books for me.

While appreciated how this book re-interprets aspects of the Trojan War and weaves in so many characters and mythological figures, the story itself just didn’t do anything for me.

The romance felt lacking, the over-abundance of battle sequences had me skimming a lot, and MC Daphne was just a really frustrating character.

I really wanted to love this series, and while I do think other fans of mythology re-telling would really enjoy this series, I know that this is just not the series for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Mythology Fantasy
Age Level: Young Adult
Content: battle violence, kisses, one fade to black scene

I loved Daughter of Sparta and couldn't wait to read Blood of Troy. The sequel did not disappoint as we follow Daphne on a mythological adventure into the city of Troy. As she becomes The Shield of Helen and is chased out of her city, Sparta, Daphne questions everything and everyone and is still haunted by the goddess Nyx. Her loyalty to Helen is unwavering. Helen of Troy is one of my favorite stories and this twist on The Trojan War was fascinating.

Blood of Troy is the second installment in author Claire Andrews Daughter of Sparta series. I do recommend that interested readers first read the first installment to get a better understanding of not only the world the author has created, but the key characters who are involved in the series. Summary: Spartan Mothakes Daphne Diodorus earned the respect of her people, and brought her Kingdom a year of wonderful harvests and fortuitous alliances thanks to what she did to help the missing Muses. But not everyone is a fan of Daphne or her desire to become a full fledged Spartan warrior.

Last year, Daphne faced off against Ares, Hermes, and Nyx, the Goddess of Darkness, who hasn't forgotten that Daphne interrupted her plans for the Olympians. Nyx now expects Daphne to fear her and is relentless in her wrath appearing everywhere she goes and sometimes causing undo attention. Summoned to Olympus because of the promise she made to the Olympian gods that she would help them again when they called upon her, Daphne finds herself dealing with yet another challenging situation.

Their command is deceptively simple: secure herself a spot as one of Queen Helen’s guards. Daphne is told that a conflict is coming to Sparta, and she needs to be among those protecting her own Queen Helen or all will be lost. Which means being part of a competition, including her own brother, to gain favor as Shield of Helen. After winning her position, Daphne and Helen have to deal with an alleged treaty summit with all factions of Greece plus Troy showing up.

At this point, Daphne's world gets much more dangerous after the Fates tell her that a war never seen before will encompass the entirely of the known world and Daphne will be at the center of what happens next. If Daphne fails to protect Helen, she will find herself on the bloody fields of Troy watching as a great country falls to the war of the Gods, and the likely fall of Olympus itself. No pressure! Daphne seriously has her hands full. She has conflicting feelings for Apollo. She ends up in Troy with Helen where we obviously meet characters like Hector, and Paris, and later Achilles and Odysseus.

So, let me repeat what the author has said. If you think you know everything there is to know about the Trojan War, and how Troy fell, you are about to get your mind blown. I think one of the things the author does well is to give an actual voice to Helen and not just assume that she ran away with Paris thus giving Agamemnon reason to war on Troy. I also had no choice but to feel for Kassandra who has always been portrayed as someone with mental issues. Had her father and brothers listened to her, there may have been a different outcome.

Plus, readers will finally get an understand as to who Daphne really is and what her heritage is and why the Gods are so silent when it comes to revealing who her father is. And, yes, there is a cliffhanger ending, and thus there will be a third installment in this series. This book is a who's who of almost all the key players in the Trojan War including Ares, Hermes who seems to have his own agenda, and of course, Nyx. I noticed while writing this review that the third book has a title. Storm of Olympus. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Blood of Troy once again follows Daphne as she is manipulated into service to the gods of Olympus. As the title suggests, this book follows the events of the Trojan War, though it doesn’t stick very closely to the myth at all. I personally enjoyed that aspect because it brought something different to an oft told story. I also just really love Daphne as a character. Given that this is the second book in the series, I can’t say very much without getting into spoiler territory, but I found this to be just as enjoyable as the first book. There were a lot more battle scenes, which didn’t hit my emotions as hard as I would have expected them to. This made them a bit of a slog to get through, though ultimately didn’t throw off the pacing of the book much. There is also a situation with Daphne that confused me until the very end when it was more or less spelled out. This could have been me though because, looking back, all the signs were there. Overall, I recommend this series in general and this book in particular.

Many thanks to NetGalley & publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for a honest review. All comments and observations are my own

Blood of Troy is Claire M. Andrews' second book in her Daughter of Sparta series. A year has past since Daphne's run-in with the gods & goddesses of Olympus and life in Sparta is generally back to normal except for the fact that Daphne's developed a little more street cred with her peers. Her relationship with her brothers, however, become quite strained when once again she's recruited by Zeus, this time to protect his daughter Helen of Sparta(/Troy) from the evil machinations of the series' big baddie: Nyx. Inevitably the MC finds herself thrust into what becomes the Trojan War and Andrews does a fantastic job of weaving what is generally known in Greek mythology and making it work to service the story. It didn't feel like a rehashing of tales as old as time because you can really tell that she did her research; Andrews plays with the supposeds of the event as well as what may have happened to key players. Her fictional characters were intertwined so well with Homer's that one could easily assume that they were there all along.

Without giving away any spoilers Andrews' narrative in regards to the Trojan War may definitely turn a few heads. I was so engrossed with this story that even I, a person with an undergrad history degree that focused on Ancient Civilizations, found this to be a more believable take. The only real weakness I found mainly involved plot progression with the battle scenes; I wish they were a little tighter. I understand that Andrews wanted to convey that there were many skirmishes however, as the writer you have the freedom to pick and choose when to have really detailed action sequences and when to just allude that more battles happened. There were a few times when I felt that certain scenes/actions weren't necessary and our characters were just in this cyclical pattern, created because so-and-so needed to meet this person so that such-and-such can eventually happen.

Overall I enjoyed Blood of Troy but not as much as Daughter of Sparta; the latter was just a more cohesive story. Nevertheless, Andrews does a masterful job of making an ancient text seem new again and I cannot wait for the finale of this series to find out how Daphne changes her world.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Blood of Troy is the second installment in Claire Andrews' Daughter of Sparta series. As the title indicates, it takes place primarily against the backdrop of the Trojan War, as main character Daphne is once again called upon by the Olympian gods for help.

I had mixed feelings about Daughter of Sparta, so I wasn't sure what I would be walking into when picking up Blood of Troy. This book is packed with action scenes and features many (many, many) Greek deities and mythological heroes. I think there are plenty of readers who will love both of those things, and will doubly love Andrews' continued reinterpretation of the events of the Iliad and various myths. To be sure, the idea of writing this sort of historical event from a perspective we rarely see in retellings is interesting and unique. For me, though, it did miss the mark, I think mostly because in two full books, I don't feel like I've genuinely been convinced to like any of the lead characters. Daphne especially is the kind of strong female lead character I'd love to unabashedly love, but she seems to too often bend to the narrative rather than the narrative bending to her, which makes her fall flat for me more than anything. And while I do love a good retelling, there's so much to keep up with character-wise when cramming something as massive as the Trojan War into under 500 pages of YA novel.

I will say I did thoroughly enjoy Helen getting to be a Real Character Who Does Things, even though I still wanted more.

I do think this book has its audience and its merits, and I'd certainly encourage readers who enjoy adventurous retellings -- or retellings that take risks/diverge from source material -- to pick this series up. I'm also interested to see how Daphne's story will wrap up.

Thank you NetGalley, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and Claire Andrews for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! This is a really fun and interesting book that I think fans of mythology will really enjoy. I loved the new twists that it added to the original story of the Trojan war. There’s a couple things that I would have done differently, but this book is full of action and is an addicting read. I recommend it for fans of the first book!

Love Daphne and her relationship with Hermes. The last 20% of the book was downhill — things kept getting worse and worse and it was hard to follow what the actual climax was meant to be, but I cannot WAIT for the third book!