The Voyage Home is a masterclass in Greek mythology retellings – showcasing Pat Barker’s extraordinary characterisation and prose.

Barker brings us the final instalment in her The Women of Troy trilogy, focusing on the enslaved Ritsa (body woman to Cassandra), Cassandra and Clytemnestra. This has always centred on the stories of women confined to the margins whose stories have gone untold, like Ritsa, as well as new spins on some of the most famous moments of the Trojan War saga. Narratively, I really enjoyed the choice to give Ritsa first person narration and her more privileged fellow protagonists third person narratives, redressing that power balance a little. For me, Clytemnestra’s confrontation of Agamemnon is a part of the story that has always stuck with me. It is a tragic and heartfelt moment that also speaks to revenge and long-held anger. Barker muses on fate and the continual way women are used as pawns within this conflict, even away from the battlefield.

Clytemnestra is returning the violence inflicted upon Iphigenia and it is a cathartic unleash upon a monstrous man, but it also continues this never-ending cycle of death and destruction. It is a damning indictment of patriarchal power and its ripple effects through the generations. I have always also been fascinated with the figure of Cassandra, cursed to foresee the future but never to be believed. When this is combined with the rape culture underpinning her story, it rings uncomfortably true to the modern day. Barker’s characterisation of Cassandra is interesting and a subtle take that showcases a different side to her. I just always love how complex her characterisation is – it is layered and messy and deeply human.

The Voyage Home is exquisite – it is tragic, it is bold and it is unforgettable.

The Voyage Home continues Pat Barker's stories of the women of Troy, as Cassandra and Ritsa return alongside Agememnon to Mycenae where he must face the consequences of his actions at the star of the war.

There's always going to be issues when retelling Cassandra's story, as it's hard to build up suspense for an inevitable event that even the characters know is going to happen. However I think Pat Barker does a good job of making the reader still wonder if Cassandra's prophecy will eventually come to pass. However, I still think this sufferers with the same issues I had with the previous installments in that the multi povs often feel like one voice. I was often confused if the chapters were from Ritsa, Cassandra and even Clytemnestra (even though her chapters are not first person). This led to me being frequently thrown out of the story, and this slow build up that Barker was creating leading up to out 'main event' was often lost. The women also didn't feel distinct enough, with their development feeling a little thin on the ground because the story was stretched between the three. If we'd just had Ritsa or Cassandra I think this would have worked better. Especially when I compare this to recent novels that I've read and enjoyed that retell the same story and and have purposely centered one female voice.

I also didn't love that the writing often used colloquial language, again an issue I picked up in previous books in the series. It just felt a bit jarring. As did the slightly weird paranormal vibes the story was trying to give off. It didn't need it. The House of Atreus, with all its history, doesn't need ghost handprints to create a menacing atmosphere. It manages that all on its own by recounting the horrific events of its past. Especially when said ghost prints don't lead to anything plot wise.

However, even with all that, I do think overall this was a fast and compelling read that puts the women who fall in the shadow of powerful men back into the foreground.

https://lynns-books.com/2024/08/26/review-the-voyage-home-by-pat-barker-women-of-troy-3/
4.5 of 5 stars
My Five Word TL:DR Review: But Is this the conclusion?

I’ve loved reading Pat Barker’s imaginative retellings where the women of Troy are given a voice and opportunity to tell their story. Seriously, this series is amazing. I’m not sure if this is the final instalment, the title has the ring of a final book in series but if more books are forthcoming I’ll certainly be there for them. This particular story brings to us three women, two of them well known in terms of Greek mythology, Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon. In this retelling they are joined by a fictional character called Ritsa who serves as Cassandra’s body woman.

We begin the story with the voyage home where both women tread a fine line between pride and fear. Cassandra, once a priestess, a prophet that no one pays any regard to and now the trophy wife of Agamemnon almost longs for the voyage to end. She has foretold both her own and her husband’s death and whilst no one believes her she awaits her own end with no sense of dread, believing that for the prophecy to come true it must unfold in its entirety. Her slave Ritsa, formerly a healer is an easy to like and down to earth woman. She has known her own tragedy and it takes a while for her and Cassandra to strike a balance. Clytemnestra has also patiently awaited her husband’s return. She longs to avenge her daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed by her father to appease the Gods and gain a fair wind.

What I really enjoyed about this.

Once again the story is told in a very easy to access voice. I think perhaps this instalment felt a little more modern than the previous two books although I could be misremembering, but the places are always easy to imagine and the characters are really well drawn with the minimum fuss.

If you know the story then clearly the author is working within certain restraints and being a Greek tragedy there’s no escaping the inevitable What made this slightly different was giving us a fictional voice to allow glimpses into other aspects of the lives of these characters. Ritsa, being the slave of Cassandra is given some agency to come and go, her movements not always as closely observed as the other two women and therefore showing us the life that everyday folk lived. The herb gardens, the strange, rambling and disorientating palace, haunted by terrible deeds from the past, the claustrophobic ship that conveyed these women to Greece.

Agamemnon had no fear returning home, he resumed his role as King with swift ease, never once deferring to his wife, he assumed her subservience as his natural right and had no compunction about flaunting his young concubine. At the end of the day his arrogance led him blindly to his own downfall, it never occurred to him to have any fear of his wife, a woman eaten by the need for revenge.

The other thing that really hit me whilst reading was this secret longing for a different ending, this strange and unrealistic hope that maybe things will end differently for these women. It shows how the author draws you in and makes you form attachments, her storytelling is so good that you being to hope for something to change but at the same time you already know the outcome.

In conclusion this is an excellent series. I’ve enjoyed all these retellings. The writing is good, the author portrays the struggles and horror in such a way that there is no sensationalising of the brutality just a clear description of events that really bring home to you the cruelty and arrogance, the lack of feeling even, of some of these powerful men.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

What this gains in relateability, it loses in the mythic 3.5 rating

It’s with a bit of puzzlement and heavy heart that I find my rating so low. Barker had set her own bar impossibly high with the earlier parts of this trilogy. I can’t help but rate all writing about classical Greek myth and history to my first adult or young adult reading experience here – Mary Renault. Renault really brought home the weird, the mythic, the archetype and the long shadow of the past reaching into the present. Also, the sense that these were ‘real people’ and in some ways, their history might relate to ours, they might be like us, we might be like them though their world was different from ours. We shared psychologies, what it means to be human. And yet…..that world was utterly weird.

I felt all that, still, that combination of utterly strange and yet…the stories are still playing out, we are still unable to escape from these patterns of war, ancestral trauma, generational trauma, revenge, in the first book of this trilogy, The Silence of the Girls, a book of extraordinary power.

Here, Barker goes for taking us into relating to them, by having her central narrator, Ritsa, maid to Cassandra, speak in modern vernacular, particularly, using the rhymes and songs of a twentieth century child, which play in her head, and have sinister and resonant meaning to the horror of what has happened. Ritsa of course is also now, like other Trojan women, a slave. Making Ritsa very modern, very relateable, somehow moves this book away from that strangeness, and loses the ‘hairs up on the back of the neck’ weirdness, making this also more like fairy story.

Unfortunately the other comparison for me was a book I read fairly recently, though published a few years ago, covering the same territory, Natalie Haynes ‘A Thousand Ships’ Haynes, to my mind, had managed the balance of the impossibly weird, horrific and strange, with the ‘this is so like our STILL unfolding history’ – looking at current conflict zones, wonderfully, as well as incorporating a wry, mordant kind of humour in the character of Penelope, writing one of those never sent letters, a kind of journal, to her husband Odysseus.

Haynes book was too powerfully still present in my mind as I read this, so I couldn’t avoid making comparison.

This is just super. Immensely readable, wonderful interpretation of events at the end of the Trojan War. Clytemnestra and Cassandra are shown from their own viewpoints, and Ritsa ties the story together to bring you a complete overview of the events leading to Agamemnon's death. Absolutely enjoyable, a great addition to the previous two books in the series.

The Voyage Home is the 3rd book in Pat Barker’s Women of Troy series.
After the 10 year Trojan war King Agamemnon is returning home with Cassandra, his Trojan war bride (and daughter of Priam) who was endowed with the gift of prophecy but fated never to be believed.
The tale is narrated by her body slave Ritsa, and like the two previous books it’s told from the female perspective.
Ritsa has a straightforward way of narrating the coarsely raw experience of these women and Pat Barker cleverly uses modern dialogue, which makes the tale far more relatable for the reader.
Meanwhile, back home in Mycenae, Clytemnestra is waiting to avenge Agamemnon’s sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia ten years before.
For me, of all the characters it was Clytemnestra who was brought most vividly to life in this book, along with the clammy oppressiveness of the palace, threat of looming disaster, the creeping air of menace and knowledge that the inevitable outcome couldn’t be avoided.
It is all so well portrayed there were times I was holding my breath and hoping for a different outcome.
These three books don’t hold back in depicting the brutal reality for Trojan women of every class, however towards the end of this book Cassandra muses “Men begin and end their lives as helpless lumps of flesh in the hands of women, and all the years between-power, success, wealth, fame, even victory in war-are merely a doomed attempt at escape.”

Highly recommended and hoping for a fourth book in due course!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for an ARC

With thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
#TheVoyageHome #NetGalley #PatBarker

Well the wrap up of this set of three novels as a trilogy is far from as poignant or involving as both the Regeneration and Life Class sets - in fact I have found it a somewhat jarring mix of voice and character focus to really accept them as a pure triad of linked stories. The Silence of the Girls, Women of Troy and now The Voyage Home are undoubtedly linked with a subset of themes and key story chronology, but have not powered through creating a lineage that tethers character, to story, to engagement, to emotion and so on.

A story with range, intrigue and powerful feminist voices - this retelling of Cassandra and Clytemnestra sings with defiance, quiet resolution and revolutionary essence of spirit. Following from The Women of Troy, the war is over and Troy is in ruins.
In winning, the Greeks fill their ships with treasures looted from victory, including the Trojan women. We meet among them the prophetess Cassandra, and her hear the story primarily through the voice of her maid Ritsa. Cassandra is enslaved as a chosen mistress for King Agamemnon, but is plagued by visions of his death, and we get echoes of Barker's knack for undertones of psychodramatic horror similar to the war haunted characters in Regeneration, as Ritsa witnesses the frenzy and trauma of Cassandra's reactions.
At the same time, Queen Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, who is still heart-broken by his choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy when the war began. 10 years have left her with plenty of time to plot retribution for him. As his two women travel towards each other, they are soon united by the vision and need for Agamemnon's death.

That being said, I do think that, when taken as a stand alone novel in it's own right, The Voyage Home is an expertly crafted and sublimely written piece - as we undoubtedly expect from Barker. As ever the imagery and power of the language she uses to create place and people is deft, purposeful and carries meaning without over-substantiating sentences or sections of description beyond what is needed.
There is solid balance between narrative voice and the sometimes-shifting character perspective alongside the shaping of Greece and it's landscape, society and atmosphere post-war.
Though a little lengthy in places when telling the story and reaching the climax - there could have been a few chapters cut down - nothing felt irrelevant, and perhaps the intention was that the wait for the murderous climax was drawn out a little to retain some tension and ignite some frustration - especially with the planning being som much a part of how these female characters are empowered.

This is truly an enjoyable read, and so much within it's own premise and particulars, can be read alone even if the previous two novels have not been read.
Barker truly is one of the best creators of imagery and creating a sense of place which has meaning and thoughtfulness, allowing you to connect to it, wonder about it and empathise with it's inhabitants long after the final chapter is read.

The Voyage Home is the retelling of the mythological Greek story of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon and Cassandra. Troy has now fallen and the priestess and princess Cassandra is being carried home to Mycenae as Agamemnon's war bride. Clytemnestra is still furious about Agamemnon's sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia and is plotting her revenge.

The story is told by Cassandra's maid, Ritsa, and she brings a wonderfully down-to-earth aspect to the tale. I liked the language used, it was very 21st century English, so the characters felt more relatable than they would if they were speaking in an archaic way.

A very fitting end to the trilogy (if it is an end?) Five stars from me.

***advance review copy received from NetGalley in return for an honest review***
A wonderful third installment in this trilogy, which continues to give a voice to the forgotten players of the Iliad - the women. What I particularly enjoy about these books is the down to earth language used, the way Barker shows us these are people just like we are. The temptation I think with mythology is to go high brow, poetic and beautiful language - it has its place, no doubt, but having your characters say things like “me dad’s place” firmly roots the reader with the understanding that this is a story about how these events affected the common people. We focus so often on the “big players”, the kings and queens - and they are present, too - but I really enjoy the way this shows the same events from a different perspective.

The third and final novel in Pat Barker's Women of Troy series, following Ritsa, Cassandra and Clytemnestra at the end of the war. A well-written and fitting conclusion to the trilogy, with a writing style that makes reading easy. However it lacked the propulsiveness of the earlier books and could have gone deeper into Clytemnestra and Cassandra's perspectives. A good read.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

Wow, there are a few authours that manage to get Greek retelling right, and Pat Batker is one of them. The third part of a triology this book packs jn so much information and story telling in such a short space it leaves you wanting more....picking this trilogy up on the last book I didn't realise this was the end ( I will go back and read the rest) I've have a lot of knowledge due to this being my favourite genre I just picked it up and was able to understand what was going on....

Nice short chapters that keep you engaged, and characters that will love in a heart beat a book filled of tragedy that you know isn't going to end well. A series that I will be recommending to others who want to start reading Greek mythological retelling.More of a four and half star review...

The Voyage Home is the final instalment in the trilogy that began with The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy. The Trojan War is over and Agamemnon is returning home with his concubine Cassandra and her maid Ritsa. Told mainly from the point of view of Ritsa, the reader learns that Cassandra has prophesied her death alongside Agamemnon’s when they return to his home. His Queen Clytemnestra has been ruling in his absence whilst also grieving the death of her daughter who was used as a sacrifice to the Gods in return for a wind for the war boats and she has been planning her revenge. I loved The Silence of the Girls and love Pat Barker’s writing but it didn’t feel that this part of the story justified a whole novel on its own. The main action in the novel feels inevitable and it then fizzles out. It is a hugely atmospheric novel however and Barker’s attention to detail and the lives of the women involved is, as always, superb.

Pat Barker has excelled herself with The Voyage Home. This is such a fitting conclusion to her trilogy of books about the Trojan women. Her characters come to life on the page and immerse the reader into history.
The book follows Ritsa, now enslaved into the service of Cassandra as she travels from her home in Troy to Greece. The Ancient Greece of Agamemnon is beautifully described, as is the cruelty and brutality of the king and the conquering Greeks. Ritsa and Cassandra, the doomed daughter of Priam, are so sympathetically portrayed. The ending of the book brings a feeling of redemption and relief.
This is a truly compelling conclusion to this trilogy and I would highly recommend it.

The third in Barker's retelling the story of Troy and the aftermath from the point of view of the women - enslaved, raped, forcibly married or, in the case of Clytemnestra, at home alone for 10 years ruling in the absence of her husband and all the while grieving and plotting vengeance on Agamemnon for the death of their daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed by him to aid the Greeks on their way to Troy.

Three women: Clytemnestra, Cassandra, daughter of Priam now enslaved and married to Agamemnon, and Ritsa her slave and personal maid, are the central focus of this novel. All of them are struggling for agency in the face of the aftermath of war and the ways in which women lose on all fronts. Barker conveys this excellently, as well as the toxic, bloody atmosphere of Agamemnon's court, haunted by other children brutally murdered by his father.

There are now a lot of retellings of Greek myths from a female point of view, but Barker is among the best, if not the best.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

Once more Pat Barker astounds us with her grasp of history through the eyes of those of myth and legend. Her writing is both timeless and sparse, with no pretension at imitating the vernacular of the past. We are there with her, exposed to the sights and smells of the time, the bloody wars and the aftermath. Agamemnon is returning home after ten years of the Trojan wars with Cassandra, former high priestess and his spoils of war. She has been given the gift of foretelling the future by the god Apollo, but is cursed as no one will believe her. The king’s wife has ruled in his name but harbours a festering rage after he sacrificed her beloved daughter in exchange for a fair wind to go to war. She seeks justice, as do many Trojan parents whose children were victims to his cruelty.
This is a gripping story, well told, from the perspective of the main female protagonists, for there is a third, a slave to Cassandra, who must witness much, and link us to love, life and death. She knows the cost of war, and lives left behind. I look forward to more of the same in the future.

This is the third instalment of Pat Barker's Women of Troy series, and I have to say, my favourite so far.
I had struggled with the previous two books, mainly because of the inclusion of male POVS in what is marketed as a feminist and woman focused retelling of the Trojan War, as well as the second book which was quite repetitive and stilted.
Comparatively, this book is a breath of fresh air. The focus is much tighter, we follow Ritsa (an enslaved woman, formerly a noble woman of Lyrnessus) as she and her mistress, the ill fated seer, Cassandra travel with Agamemnon back to Greece after emerging victorious from the Trojan War.
We also get Clytemnestra's perspective and see how she prepares to be reunited with her husband (and his new wife) after ten years of absence.
For me, Ritsa and Clytemnestra were much more likable than Briseis, I found the tighter focus on the one story much more enjoyable and overall this was a really interesting and pleasant read and an excellent instalment in this series. However it will also read well if you haven't read the previous two books, functioning well as a stand alone tale.

The best in historico-mythic fiction

History is a record written by the victors, which is why women's voices were rarely recorded in the ancient past, even though the first ever novel was written by a woman. In Pat Barker's adept and deft hands, this continues the Trojan war and all that happened around it, but through the voices of the women who are sidelined in the original tales, and brought thrillingly and viscerally to life by Barker's careful and penetrating craft.

Agamemnon returns in triumph after laying sack to Troy. Agamemnon sweats in nightmare, hagridden by the daughter he sacrificed. Witness to both Agamemnons is Cassandra, Apollo-blessed and cursed, and the king's unwilling wife, unable to tell a falsehood but lying with her body. And with her is her slave, Trojan healer Ritsa, cursing Agamemnon with every fibre of her being.

As these three travel back to Mycenae and the open arms of Clytemnestra, Barker weaves a tale of prophecy, survival and retribution, taking the touchpoints of the Iliad and bringing it to life, with all of the humanity and inhumanity that the horrors of war and murder imply. The past is parent of the present, and past deeds will always demand their price.

Superlative: five stars.

I really enjoyed Pat Barker’s first two Troy books, The Silence of the Girls and The Trojan Women, so I was keen to find out where she might take us next. Thanks to those, along with Natalie Haynes’s A Thousand Ships, I found it easy to imagine the camp on the shore below Troy as the Greeks pack up and prepare to set sail with the spoils of war. This time the story is narrated in part by Ritsa, in a past life the wife of a healer in Lyrnessus, then given as battle prize to medic Machaon. Now she finds herself slave to the former priestess Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecate, cursed by Apollo to see the future but never believed. As if that weren’t enough for one lifetime, Cassandra is now the concubine of Agamemnon, being taken back with him to Mycenae. The anticipation is delicious: we know he’s not long for this world, as Cassandra tells anyone who will listen (nobody), but they do not. The gods in this telling are distant, mentioned but perhaps not always believed in, but there is an element of the supernatural: handprints, footprints, voices in the great palace of Mycenae.
Agamemnon is plagued by visions of his daughter Iphigenia, whom he sacrificed to allow the fleet to set sail to Troy all those years ago. His wife Clytemnestra has had a long time to work out what she will do on his return. Here, she and his cousin Aegisthus are not lovers; she suffers his presence as someone useful in helping her to get rid of Agamemnon but that’s all. Her son Orestes is heir, after all.
I’ve been trying to pin down what it is I love about Pat Barker’s writing. It’s unfussy, strong on observed detail. A Booker Prize winner could hardly be called under-rated but I do wonder whether we appreciate and cherish Barker and her work as much as we should, alongside other greats. The first encounter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon on his return from Troy is a masterclass in point scoring and weary acceptance, the bitterness and pragmatism of a long marriage spoiled. As this part of the story closes, I wonder if she will continue with these characters, following Orestes to his fate too. I do hope so.
Thanks to Penguin for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker is the amazing conclusion to her Troy trilogy, a series that reimagines the events of Homer’s Iliad from a female perspective. This final installment continues the story of the captured Trojan women as they journey back to Mycenae with the victorious Greeks.

The novel centers on Ritsa, a fictional slave, and her mistress Cassandra, the Trojan priestess and concubine of King Agamemnon.
Ritsa’s character highlights the themes of survival and adaptation. Ritsa’s ability to endure and find moments of humanity in her dire circumstances makes her a poignant and relatable figure. Barker uses Ritsa to explore the broader impacts of war and displacement on women, giving voice to those who are often silenced in traditional narratives.
Barker’s portrayal of Cassandra is particularly compelling. As a seer plagued by visions of impending doom, Cassandra’s character is complex and deeply human. Her relationship with Ritsa, marked by compassion and shared suffering, adds depth to the story.
Overall, The Voyage Home is a powerful, satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion to Barker’s trilogy, offering a fresh and poignant perspective on a classic tale.
Thank you to @penguinbooks and @netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this wonderful book

I didn't realise that this was the follow-up to Pat Barker's The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls and it worked brilliantly as a standalone book. I want to read the other 2 books now.

Likeable middle aged Ritsa, healer, bereaved mother, friend and now slave travels to Agamemnon's Greece from her Trojan home as Cassandra's maid. Charismatic Agamemnon is physically and emotionally repulsive. The palace is a sinister, disorientating place marked by horrors from the past and Clytemnestra is a complex and anguished queen. Ritsa's account is very real and human and she describes the physicality of life with a funny, intelligent and brutal eye. Ancient Greece is described with such an immediacy that I felt immersed in the smells, fears, dangers and relationships in the book. I loved this fresh engaging retelling of Agamemnon and Cassandra's death and loved having Clytemnestra and Ritsa as the narrators.