This book was a thoroughly enjoyable read with plenty of flaws and an ending that's going to make you cry even if you knew it was going to happen.
Sarah Underwood has taken the Odyssey's side characters and made them the focus of their own story in Lies We Sing To The Sea. Her bingable writing, tremulous sapphic main character's, and rich secrets will make think about this book when you aren't reading it! It's perfect for fans of Madeline Miller and features bi and lesbian main characters. (Though this can be up to interpretation in a way)

I had a few gripes with the writing, there were a few jumps that made it very confusing though that could be part to my ARC, part to my devouring reading. Many of those moments could have been taken out and had been useless to the overall story by the end. As well as the issue noted in many other reviews of this book about the author never actually reading the Odyssey before writing a book about the Odyssey. My personal opinion is that the Odyssey is a story that can be interpreted in multiple ways. That's the beauty of storytelling! Though, I understand the issue with not respecting source material.

However, even when I thought I wasn't going to I absolutely cried at the end. And if you're a heartfelt sensitive sob like me, you will too!

I enjoyed the setup of this, a centuries-later spin-off built from characters mentioned in the Ithacan portions of the Odyssey. But I thought ultimately it was extremely shallow in its treatment of ancient Greek life and melodramatically predictable in its treatment of its own characters—I didn't know it was YA until I came to write this review, but that's not really an excuse for the lack of depth to the cultures depicted or to its own invented personalities. I also thought it fully embraced harmful, cruel biphobic stereotypes—maybe if it were a specific treatment of a fully realized character it would have come off better and felt differently, but since it was all so shallow, it just hurt.

3.5⭐️
ARC from NetGalley.

There’s a curse on the daughters of Ithaca. When Poseidon marks you, you’re headed to the gallows. But that is only the beginning of this story. This is a journey of love, strength, betrayal, and vengeance.

This was a well written story, and I do love Greek mythology. But, like a few other books I’ve read, this simply wasn’t for me at this time of my life. I think if I were younger I might have enjoyed this much more? As an adult, I thought the story was almost too long, and we could have gotten to the ending sooner. I do like the author’s ability to write the rash feelings and illogical thoughts of teenagers! Also love that it was more of a bi romance, and the ending felt more realistic than most other YA books.

Lies We Sing to the Sea-I’m not sure where to start. I liked the premise of the book and adored Greek retelling, but the characters I couldn’t connect on a personal level. The character development was fine, especially the Melantho background, but as for the other two, Leto and Mathias were fine.They were okay. Some of her descriptions and multi-view narrating felt very jumpy and not well connected. I continuously read the same passage over and over again. (Not a great reading experience)

I gave this book 2 /5 stars.
Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for the e-arc!

“But Ithaca would drown if they were allowed to live, and a choice between them and every other soul on this wretched island was not a choice at all.”

As vengeance for the hanging of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, Poseidon demands the sacrifice of twelve marked maidens from Ithaca each year. When headstrong Leto is met with the noose preordained for her, she finds herself waking up on an island facing a fate other than death. Now, Leto is tasked with the key to breaking Ithaca’s prevailing curse: murdering Prince Mathias of Ithaca. With the help of Melantho─an island girl with the power of the sea─Leto embarks on her mission to save future generations of women; but she becomes entangled in a sea of love, secrets, and lies that put more than one life on the line.

Told from the perspectives of the three main characters, Lies We Sing to the Sea crafts an epic tale woven with poetic prose and romance. The outline of the story is compelling with its mythological background, humanized characters, and tragic ending. However, a lot of the charm ends there. Setting aside the fact that the story is not a true retelling of The Odyssey as advertised by the author, I found myself disappointed with many substance-related components. To begin, much of the plot felt prolonged and unexplained until further along, but by then the pacing felt too unbalanced to be redeemed. Second, I was excited for the sapphic representation, but the underdeveloped love triangle between the three leads made the relationship between Leto and Melantho a little underwhelming. Along those lines, the characters themselves lacked development and complexity, leading to a repetitive and flat-lined tone for certain chapters. Although I relatively enjoyed Leto’s character, I wish her interactions with the other two were more fleshed out rather than washed away by excessive romance.

Lies We Sing to the Sea holds much potential with a strong foundation, especially if it is advertised as a spin-off rather than a retelling. While it may not be on my list of books to read again, I appreciate the gorgeous writing indicative of Sarah Underwood’s talent, and I am hopeful for her future works to come.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book early! Months ago, on TikTok, I heard about this book and its complicated relationship with its source material, The Odyssey. However, I’m so glad that I picked up this book because, while The Odyssey may have inspired this book, this book is definitely not a retelling. This is very important distinction, as I think the marketing team may have done this book a disservice by marketing this novel as a sapphic retelling of the classic early on. Instead, this wildly adventurous and heart-wrenching tale builds upon the life (and afterlife) of a virtually unknown and oft-forgotten character, the only named maid of twelve, in the classic. Melantho died centuries before this book takes place, yes at the hands of Odysseus, but this book not only gives voice and justice to her as well as names to the other maids. I appreciated that this was a book not about romance, or mythology, but justice. When Melantho and her fellow maids were murdered for no fault of their own, Melantho begged the gods to curse Ithaca, and Poseidon did. Centuries later, thousands of girls have been sacrificed to the sea—twelve each year—to stave off the destructive storms that would occur otherwise, and this year, the daughter of the former royal oracle, Leto, has been chosen. Leto has learned to be a survivor in her short life and being condemned to death does not stop her. She wakes up on Melantho’s island prison and learns that she has been chosen, again, to return to Ithaca and murder the prince and break the curse once and for all. She is now changed, a creature of the sea, and she will do whatever it takes to help Melantho escape her prison and save all the future girls who might be killed otherwise. I liked that Melantho was a complex character, prone to jealousy and hidden truths, because she is a product of her suffering. She has personally buried every other girl who has died at the hands of this curse and knows that Leto is their last chance, even as she begins to fall in love with her. At times, their romance was sweet, at others destructive and codependent, but again, I did feel as I was reading that that was a realistic portrayal of two young women trauma bonding over their afterlives and future premeditated murder. What the women, especially Leto, do not expect is for Prince Mathias to actually care about the fate of the girls and hopes to break the curse himself. At the beginning of the novel, I couldn’t help but thinking that Mathias was written to be sensitive and emotionally mature, but ended up being a bit pathetic. Nevertheless, he grew on me as I realized he did, in fact, have a spine. I would say, however, that Leto is mostly responsible for that character growth. I liked the characterization of Leto as a semi-successful oracle, but I wish it played a bit more of a role. Sometimes in the writing, it was a little difficult to discern when she was having a vision and only realizing that she did when the writing literally said she did. So it did require some backtracking at times. Nevertheless, prophecies played an important role in this book and in the final, heartbreaking climax. Mathias, Leto, and Melantho grew together as characters as they unraveled the strings of fate that could never be avoided: Mathias was always meant to die, from the moment we met him. But it was his choice to do so, for the fate of his country and his people, that broke my heart and made me love his character. When all is said and done and Leto is alone, surrounded in her vision, by green growth and daffodils, she—and we—know that the tragic ending was not senseless. Hope remains. This story is a Greek tragedy of its own and it delightfully plays into each trope, while giving voice to the often voiceless and misunderstood women in classical literature. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, and I was pleasantly surprised.

This was a DNF for me partly based on other reviews as well as my own personal opinions. The first few pages captured some interest, but the more I read, the more I felt my interest wan. I think this is supposed to be a retelling of The Odyssey? But I wasn't really getting it. I like that this is a sapphic retelling, but this just wasn't it for me.

I received this book from Netgalley for free for an honest review. Lgbtq historical fiction at its best. The world building is top notch and had me on the edge of my seat.

A gorgeous story coming out just in time for women’s history month! Strong female leads step onto the scene of this greek myth inspired by Penelope’s maids from Homer’s Odyssey.

Lies We Sing to the Sea is a retelling/story of the twelve maids of Penelope from the Odyssey/Iliad. We follow a girl named Leto who is doomed to die for a curse on Ithaca. Every year 12 girls are killed and given to Poseidon so that he doesn't flood Ithaca, and this has been happening for as long as everyone can remember. Leto is strong and determined and puts up a fight to not be doomed to this fate, but sadly it comes for her.

So the story follows a few POVs - Leto, the prince of Ithaca Mathias, and another 'maid' Melantho. Leto and Melantho are working together to try to kill the prince to end the curse for Ithaca, and all of the characters have secrets.

I wanted to love this book. I love Greek mythology and really enjoyed reading the Odyssey in school when I read it a long time ago, but the story felt ...off... as a retelling. There was not much there of the Odyssey. I understand that the story focused on the maids which are only briefly mentioned but still. Then after completing the read, I saw an interview with the author in which she notes that she didn't read the originals in their entirety... and now it made more sense. I felt like the book was lacking the strong epic storytelling of a Greek myth retelling... I didn't need it to actually be an epic, or in verse, but as a telling of a Greek tale, even as a retelling, it was rough in that respect.

So what I liked - There were many elements of myth (more generally) included. The Sapphic romance was a win, I liked the relationship Leto and Melanthos shared and its progression. And the character growth was well done. There was a lot of learning and adapting that everyone had to do to get to the ending. I found the overall story ok. The plot was convoluted at points and boring at others, and while I think it lends to the story well to have the 3 POVs, I think that at times one of them was very boring (Mathias). I disliked the pacing of the second half of the book, it was slow... I wanted to put it down, and at times I felt like I wanted to skim just to push through... I read it all though.

I think that this story has a lot of good qualities, if you don't think of it as a retelling, I think you will set yourself up better than I did for expectations. The characters were good ones and had a lot of promise and I was rooting for them all pretty equally at times, so that is a win. Overall if you are looking for an interesting story with some mythological elements, this might be a good one for you.

Leto has been sentenced to die, as part of the fulfillment of a curse placed on Ithaca by Poseidon centuries ago. But after her death she comes back as something not altogether human, stranded on an island with nobody but Melantho for company.
Melantho has tended to the dozen girls who wash up on her shore annually for hundreds of years, and the discovery of Leto, reborn, is a bittersweet one--it means they have one final chance to break the curse. One final prince of Ithaca to kill. Melantho must train Leto and send her on her way, hoping the girl will finally break the curse.
Mathias hates having to send 12 girls to die each year, hates having to preside over the executions, but he isn't sure if there's anything he can do to stop it. By the time Leto arrives at the castle, posing as his Athenian bride, he has finally begun to look for an answer, a way to break the curse.
As the three of them each grapple with their own role in the curse and its breaking, Leto, Melantho, and Mathias learn their fates are more interwoven than they'd ever imagined.

Lies We Sing to the Sea is a gripping examination of the roles we play in shaping our stories and those of the people who come after us. It's a story of love--of family (both by blood and choice), of romantic partners, and of country. I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to see what else Sarah Underwood has in store.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I personally really liked this book, but I do see where other reviewers are coming from. When I chose to start reading this, I threw out my existing greek mythology knowledge, and approached this from a new perspective, and I think that's what helped me enjoy it more. I didn't read it going into it thinking that it was a retelling. Overall I liked the plot, and the characters, and really look forward to buying a physical copy to put on my shelves! A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

The behavior of the author really set the book back. I think it would have had a better reception if she just had been honest up front. Shirking her responsibility to finish reading the odyssey fully really upset me. Like I understand it’s not an easy source material to get through, but if you’re gonna base your entire book around it, you have to put in the work and own up to that responsibility. Can’t handle it? Then don’t try to take it on.

Rant aside, I gave this book a chance and set aside my personal feelings to try and be objective in this review.

My judgment as it stands:

Cover of the book: 5 stars - it’s beautiful.
Overall plot: 3 stars worth
Character development: 4 stars

Due to my soft spot for sapphic characters I kept reading. I couldn’t help it because I got invested in the story before I found out about the author’s behavior. Once you’re 150 pages in, the adventure hits and the women in this book kick ass. You see their powers unfold and it’s absolutely beautiful to visualize their connection to the sea.

Putting aside how the book was advertised, the contents of this book are enjoyable. Leto scales the palace to try and sneak into the prince’s quarters, only to end up getting caught by him in the end. The way they interact made me laugh because I was surprised he didn’t recognize her right away due to how her face supposedly haunted him due to how he sent her to her death in the first part of the book.

Leto and Melantho’s interactions on the island in the first part of the book were the reason why I kept reading. Their cute sapphic moments got me blushing a bit and I couldn’t help it but keep reading. I really wanted to know what happened to them.

In the storytelling sense, there was a compelling story to follow and the characters were likable. Yet I think if the author took more time to world build better, the setting would come to life more and it would benefit the book. We got descriptions of the island, but for Ithaca it seemed like the author didn’t want to go into many details about it as much.

However, the book goes from cute moments to sad moments within pages and your heart plummets. Leto is the daughter of an Oracle and she has visions still. One of them foretells death and immediately you realize what direction the book is gonna go. In that sense, this book follows the Song of Achilles and punches you in your gut.

The author really messed up. I hope they understand what they did and apologize for their actions. This book could have done well, but their actions kinda ruined it for me. So this book is at three stars for me due to the behavior of the author.

Plot: 2.5/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Engaging? Eh.

Thank you to HarperVoyager for the e-arc!

This book is about female rage and it fails to live up to that tag line. If you are a huge greek mythology fan, this book could work for you. It just didn't deliver for me.

Plot -
Each spring, the crown prince of Ithaca must sacrifice 12 girls to the sea to satiate Poseidon's rage. Leto is one of those girls but she mysteriously wakes up on an unknown island with a new purpose. With the help of Melantho, one of Penelope's handmaidens that Odysseus had killed, Leto must return to Ithaca to kill the prince. Mathais is the prince and he is desperate to break the curse. Each year he vows to find a loophole and each year he fails. As their worlds collide, they each stumble towards the same goal unknowingly. The plot of this book did not deliver. For the first third of the book, Leto was the personification of female rage. She was going to kill the prince no matter what, that is what she was owed and the solace she could give to the other murdered girls. But as the book goes on, the plot just drags on and on. I found it hard to finish as I just became less and less interested in the plot.

Characters -
The characters all just have one personality trait and they stick to it. There is one thing that drives them and one thing that separates them from the background characters in the novel. Overall, none of them had a character journey as they are more or less the same at the beginning and end of the novel. The result is a cast of characters that you have a hard time rooting for.

Writing -
My biggest gripe was that the book just dragged on. I was okay with the slowness in the start because it set up the plot and gave background to some of the characters. But nearing the end of the novel, and nothing has happened still made it very hard to finish the book. Also the book is told from 3 rotating POVs. While Mathais' POV gave insight into his side of the story, I found it hard to finish his chapters as his character didn't add much to the story and wasn't a very compelling character. The multiple POV style did not help enhance the book and it just lengthened the plot.

This is one of those books that has a really interesting concept. The author took something she was interested in and wrote a fantasy about it - I love that for her, and I'm excited for her. I feel a bit bad for only giving this two stars, because I can only assume she put her heart into this project. But only a bit bad. Ymmv for every book you read - that's how art forms generally function.

As I've already stated I loved the premise, but I didn't completely buy Ithaca as a setting. If you've been to place with as much place-ness as Ancient Greece (speaking entirely based on my own assumptions), there should be something more to it than just daffodils growing everywhere. This is actually a decent example, because it pulled my out of the setting every time they were mentioned. Because I don't know anything about flowers, and thought they didn't grow in Greece, I got confused every time they came up - and they were kind of the only landscape/natural description we got for Ithaca. Underwood could mention as many marble columns and daffodils as she wanted, I kind of felt like the story could have been set anywhere.

The characters were another place I had an issue. I did not particularly like any of the characters as people, aside maybe from Mathias. He's my first official M/Gary Sue. He was like a wet rag for the first third of the book, moaning about how he had to kill twelve girls, complaining that there was no way around it. When he decides to try and find a way out of the curse, he apparently does nothing for several months? And it takes him forever to think of/follow new leads? This boils down also to the pacing issue I already mentioned, and Mathias definitely grew on me as the book went on. Part of his problem I decided was that he was genuinely nice, which sometimes comes off as boring or doormat-ish; it was a good change of pace having an actually nice character for once, and I nearly missed out on it because he didn't do much that was interesting.

I really struggled with Leto though, especially once she and Mathias started interacting. She would flip-flop emotions on him so quickly - one day she'd be flirty and pleasant and the next she'd fly into a rage, then she'd feel bad because she had to get him to trust her so she'd be flirty again. I get that this was her goal, but it was so toxic and off-putting. The worst part was the he kept going back - he was so hopeful for a loving marriage that he let her abuse him. It seemed transparent to me that he would be down to sacrifice himself to end the curse, because he's already trying to do everything he can. Some careful communication might have resolved a lot of this book's conflict a lot sooner. I don't think this was trying to be a miscommunication trope, because it was the "I have to kill you but I'm falling in love with you" trope, but Leto's blindness to Mathias' character was really irritating to me personally.

This was definitely not the book for me, but this book hits a lot of popular themes that other readers might appreciate:
*Fans of Greek Mythology and The Odyssey
*Sapphic romance
*A cinnamon role for a male lead
*Murder-y girls
*Historical fantasy

I decided I won’t be reading this, I have heard only bad reviews and have been now made aware of her interview a reviewer below me added for ease. I agree with everything the reviewer below says:

“Would you believe I sat down and wrote this entire review without having read the book?

If you're going to adapt a Greek story or myth, you owe it to its original author, or the people that celebrated that book in its time, to read the source material (a crazy concept, I know). I debated for a while, after reading Underwood's prolific interview, whether or not I would give her book the time she couldn't afford to give to the Odyssey. I've, clearly, decided I won't.

Hopefully, Underwood will learn from her mistakes.

(Archived interview https://web.archive.org/web/20220615031808/https://felixonline.co.uk/issue/1785/books/an-interview-with-sarah-underwood-bioengineering-graduate-and-soon-to-be-published-author)” -elizabeth bookseller

The language in this book is enchanting, beautiful and dreamy, and the twistiness of the romance was an interesting addition.

Would you believe I sat down and wrote this entire review without having read the book?

If you're going to adapt a Greek story or myth, you owe it to its original author, or the people that celebrated that book in its time, to read the source material (a crazy concept, I know). I debated for a while, after reading Underwood's prolific interview, whether or not I would give her book the time she couldn't afford to give to the Odyssey. I've, clearly, decided I won't.

Hopefully, Underwood will learn from her mistakes.

(Archived interview https://web.archive.org/web/20220615031808/https://felixonline.co.uk/issue/1785/books/an-interview-with-sarah-underwood-bioengineering-graduate-and-soon-to-be-published-author)

I didn't like this one too much. Especially after finding out that the author hasn't even read the Odyssey yet decided to write a retelling of it??? In what world does that make sense?

Sorry, but NO Rating. I guess (?)

OK, where should I start? For Greek Mythology inspired book, this book did not deliver in its own style. BUT for Romantasy, maybe

First I picked this book and requested to get the e-arc, I thought I’m going to love it because its THE SEA and I love sea’s creatures. Also it mentioned about any ”Greek Mythology” but I personally disappointed. Not only for the Greek Mythology but also about the storyline, the characters, the plot, and maybe everything. This is a debut book, I’m trying to understand, really but even as a fantasy book, I don’t think this would marked into my category of worth to read deeply.

I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY and for inspired book as the description hold, it’s not really delivered it well. The reasons probably because the storyline and the plot has no ground to hold. For 400ish pages, it is not really worth it. Almost too damn long. However, I adore the writing style because for Greek Mythology inspired, it is not hard to read. Understandable writing? Not really but more a confusing one in a sense of acceptable.

Some Issues this books holds:
➊ Mother protection (need to be expanded)
➋ Siblings different treatments
➌ Wealth is everything
➍ Find freedom and the-self before attached
➎ Foreigners and Locals
➏ Lots of Empathy even though its not in details and in a good writing way
➐ Redeemed of hatred towards “the parents”
➑ The Sirens in all our heads in quotation marks meaning
➒ Caged Bird

I’m not really a fan of this book nor I will recommend this to anyone. It might be for certain people but unfortunately, it just not for me. I’m really trying to love this book but has no reason to tbh because even there are no specific characters that piqued my interest.

Overall, it’s not an enjoyable journey. But, thank you for Netgalley giving me the privilege for reading this before the publication day. There are many plot holes and many stuff needed to be improved on this book. Several things that I gather and needed to be improved are:
➊ Stand ground on your plot, I found several things that from the later chapter saying A and then the exact previous chapter saying otherwise. And those things are in “the exact same story part”. - Like, which one should we understand? From chapter A or from chapter B?
➋ The character. The MC, probably. Is she bi? or is she lesbian? stand your ground please because it is confusing the readers. At the ending, I don’t even understand her sexuality because this is marked of LGBTQ+
If this is the author goals, she did a great job
➌ Stick to its meaning. (maybe that’s the word, somehow?) Is it Greek Myth inspired or Romantasy?

Well, the story isn’t great and doesn’t have pro and contra for the magic or anything to be point out. Also, the characters are not favorable at all and has not even once get me on my Psycho mind. The knowledge about the Greek Myth inspired needs to be improved as well. Because I knew several of them even though I’m not an expert and I read few of them for the sake of my class back on uni. So, for the description of ”Inspired by Greek Mythology” it failed miserably.