This one was slow for me to pick up on, originally, but I am glad I stuck with it. The multiple POV was what won me over and the different relationships each female POV had with Aeneas, son of Venus/Aphrodite. It was another take on the Trojan War/post-Trojan war and the viewpoints from the Latins and Trojans. It was great to see Lavinia, a strong-willed female main character take charge of her future, make decisions for herself and vocalize what she wanted/needed. I liked reading about Cruesa and her childhood and growing love for Aeneas and how she knew and chose her future and was able to own it and be brave. This also touched on Dido and her sister Anna, and how Dido wanted a husband to secure her city, and how she planned, along with Anna, to make Aeneas her husband, but in the end did not listen to him and suffered repercussions (and much worse) because of that. And this all culminated towards the end, which was where its all tied together, not necessarily nicely, but in a way that settles you as a reader.

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC!

Amazing way to portray mythology with a slightly different take. I was absorbed and enjoyed every bit of it

The enchanting tale of Aeneas, Rome, and the women who sacrificed for their destinies. The true heirs of Venus, and the legacy Augustus carried.

Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In Greco-Roman mythology, a war breaks out over who will marry Lavinia.
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I admit I knew little to nothing about The Aeneid by Virgil. This at first felt to me almost like a spinoff of Greek mythology, and I found it enjoyable and illuminating to read something new and fresh.
At its core it’s a retelling of the war between Aeneas and Turnus over who will marry Lavinia, but from the POV of the female characters. I found the battles and sociopolitics fascinating, and I think so will both those who are experts in classical mythology and those who are not. And I like that the novel is shorter - it gets to the point without being bogged down with details.

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lavinia should give a master class is social maneuvering and manipulation. I love that we see this historically male-dominated story through primarily her lens. This feminist retelling is crucial at giving insight to the characters that (I’m assuming) didn’t get the time of day in the original source text.
I also like Aeneas as a character, especially with how he’s depicted as a low key heartthrob and a high key flawed sidekick.

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Incredibly well-researched and developed.
I like the writing style and choices, such as her intentional use of run-on sentences, her integration of Roman and Greek places/people/terms, and her almost cheeky way of narrating.
But it does feel strangely fast paced, in the sense that it goes by too quick for me to grasp what’s happening. Being dialogue heavy might be the cause of this, or developing characters/plots too directly rather than naturally or implicitly.

Recommended to fans of mythology.

"War will change most men. The gods use the lesser men, manipulate them, to ensure that their favourites are protected. But in the end we are all just their playthings.”
▪️Laura Shepperson, Heir of Venus

Heir of Venus follows three women left in the wake of Aenaes, the human son of Aphrodite, in the time after the Trojan War when Aeneas fled to the Latins--all as told in Virgil's Aeneid.

It's well written, and though at times it was challenging to keep all the names straight, that wasn't a bad thing. It was so neat reading yet another retelling of a popular myth from the women's pov. Give👏🏻me👏🏻more👏🏻

I disliked her previous myth retelling, Phaedra, but I loved this one! I'm glad I gave her another chance.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for an e-arc to read and review! This publishes August 6, 2024

I found this book an interesting examination of the women of Virgil's Aeneid. When looking at The Aeneid, it is important to remember that the text was written in the 1st Century CE in order to flatter Emperor Augustus by attributing an ancient and immortal heritage to the Gens Julia and legitimizing their right to rule over the Roman people (who had decided hundreds of years earlier that they very much weren't into monarchy). As such, it's more important to look at reinterpretations of the women of The Aeneid through that lens. I think Laura Shepperson successfully conveyed that (mostly) here.

The book jumps around the timeline of The Aeneid, looking at the events most relevant to Creusa, Dido (and Anna), and Lavinia and their differing interactions of Aeneas. Creusa's intense devotion to her son is successfully portrayed in her final chapters, as that is her most important contribution to the myth. Her budding attraction to Aeneas, her discomfort at her sister's prophecies, her relationship with brother Hektor, and her distance from her mother all come across admirably in the novel. I was a little unsure of the schoolyard scenes when Creusa and Aeneas are children, as those seemed a touch too modern to suspend my disbelief, but her other parts in the story are portrayed well. The author does make a good call when it comes to portraying Helen's character as aloof and self-serving. though the reflections by Creusa's shade in the epilogue leave her own (Creusa's) stance towards Helen on an ambiguous note.

Dido's chapters (as relayed by Anna) are probably the weakest of the trio. Shepperson's Dido is forward-looking, independent, and clever until she suddenly isn't. Her and Anna's clever ruse to trap Aeneas into marriage isn't portrayed in a negative light, nor is the delusion Dido lives under thinking that she has successfully managed to make Aeneas stay with her. In The Aeneid, she listens to Aeneas's tale and the prophecies he has been told; she knows his destiny isn't with Carthage, but chooses to get herself involved with him anyway. The hatred Anna carries towards Aeneas seems unjustified, especially when the two confront each other in front of Lavinia and all of Anna's arguments crumble. The embellishments are strongest where Anna is concerned, diverging from how she is portrayed in antiquity. Anna was welcomed into the Trojans camp upon washing up in Latium, and, as opposed to being Lavinia's friend and confidante, becomes the object of Lavinia's jealousy in The Aeneid. Her transformation into a water nymph and ensuing divinity (as Anna Perenna) are ignored and she is instead reduced to a suicide by drowning. The parts of the book relating to Anna, her memories of Dido, and Anna's friendship with Lavinia are where the book suffers the most. It is also important to note the purpose Virgil had in crafting Dido's myth - he was coming up with a way to explain an enmity between Rome and Carthage that lasted throughout hundreds of years and three bloody Punic wars, as well as use Dido to warn against the involvement of Roman leaders with foreign queens (Cleopatra's tangle with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would have been quite fresh in his reader's memories). But, crucially, she is still a woman, even one flawed by passions as Dido was made to be - she dutifully looks backwards towards her deceased first husband throughout The Aeneid and chooses death in order to be with him in the end, instead of not really loving him and looking on him as a father figure as Dido does in this book. There has been so much written and analyzed about the Carthaginian queen of legend (and her water nymph sister) that her depiction in this book falls flat and does the character a disservice.

Lavinia's portions, on the other hand, were the best chapters in the book. Here, we see a young woman with a pragmatic head. Here, we can see the cool logic of Latium that, when brought together with the warlike Trojans, provides a good founding myth for the people of Rome. She does reflect on the deaths her choices/actions seem to bring about, but ultimately cannot make herself suffer for those. She has a duty to the prophecy told by her father, a duty to the people of Latium and her new Trojan subjects, and a duty to ensure Ascanius's future is secured. This is a characterization Virgil himself would have wholly endorsed - a woman who sees the future and welfare of her people as the most important thing. Her girlish desires to travel I largely ignored - it seemed a cheap attempt on Shepperson's part to make her relatable to a modern audience. She stands in The Aeneid as a representation of the 'virtus' all Roman women were meant to possess, and the secret power she manages to wield, influencing both her father and Aeneas to bend to her will, is evocative of the power imperial Roman women would come to use in history. Lavinia, aside from her friendship with Anna and her odd thoughts about how she wants to fill her time after Aeneas has died, seems the character most rooted in the myth of the founding of Rome - Creusa coming across as too Greek and Dido as too underdeveloped. This book stands on Lavinia's shoulders and there is where it is held up the best, when it comes to reading this novel as a take on Virgil's Aeneid.

For being called The Heir of Venus, there is little piety expressed by the characters for their respective gods (even Cassandra forsakes Apollo at her end). However, if the aim of the original work served to justify bloodshed, civil war, strife, and divinely anointed leadership as the predestined fate of the Romans by their gods, Shepperson's book manages to hit all those same notes from the perspective of the story's women.

So... Venus is the Roman version of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Um so as a historian that bothers mean. Kind of like the movie Hercules instead of using Heracles but idk that's just me, I also have OCD and hyper fixate on little details. But other than that the book was really well written. I love Greek retellings. If that detail doesn't bother you then it's a must read.

I'm a sucker for Greek mythology books! If you loved The Song of Achilles, Psyche and Eros and the like then you'll enjoy this!

Those who are fans of Madeline Miller books will enjoy this book. The novel jumps back and forth telling the tales of three different women involved romantically with Aeneas the son of Venus. It covers the complexities of being a woman in ancient times and how they had little to no autonomy over their lives.

I was not at all familiar with the story of Aeneas and did not know that he fought in the battle of Troy. The book had me wondering what would happen next and hoped for a happy ending for all of the women.

The book is a tame romantic novel with no raunchy scenes in it. I enjoyed this book a lot and would read other novels by this author. For those who enjoy Greek/roman mythology I would recommend this.

I love these! Any fan of Madeline Miller will love this. I like how much this book emphasizes that all of the women were doomed from the start.