The opening narrative voice in this little novel is that of Chryseis, now an old woman who serves as a sort of priest of Apollo and Sibyl at the ancient temple of Smintheum in Chrysa – a land ruled by Troy, as she narrates her life story. [Smintheum means little mouse in an ancient Greek tongue; mice were sacred to Apollo and mythology says he appeared in the form of a mouse as well as the mouse served as Apollo’s messenger at times.]

Chryseis had been to her parents a miracle child of great beauty who has the ability to experience mystical visions that should guarantee her future but instead merits her doom as a captive slave to Agamemnon and forces her to keep that “gift of the god” secret. Chryseis is the “Cressida” of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.

Then the voice becomes that of Briseis, another captive of Achilles who rounds out the Greek p.o.v.

From inside Troy, Hecabe, Andrmoache, Kassandra, and the alien Greek Helen complete the first person voices that give witness to events in this re-imagining of the "Iliad"

I enjoyed this book for its evocation of ancient Greece, the use of language evocative of the Iliad, and the insight into the imagined world of women in a dark and brutal time of whom little is really known. The novel stirred my memories of the ruins I have toured in Greece, and my imagination for the places I haven’t been except through reading. The Kindle e-book includes a non-fiction historical afterward, “The Reality of Troy.” ( )