Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
Published: 26/08/2021
ISBN: 9780241427231
Length: 320 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 31mm x 162mm
Weight: 536g
RRP: £18.99
Troy has fallen and the Greek victors are primed to return home, loaded with spoils. All they need is a good wind to lift their sails.
But the wind does not come. The gods are offended - the body of Priam lies desecrated, unburied - and so the victors remain in uneasy limbo, camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed. The coalition that held them together begins to fray, as old feuds resurface and new suspicions fester.
Largely unnoticed by her squabbling captors, erstwhile queen Briseis remains in the Greek encampment. She forges alliances where she can - with young, rebellious Amina, with defiant, aged Hecuba, with Calchus, the disgraced priest - and she begins to see the path to revenge...
Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
Published: 26/08/2021
ISBN: 9780241427231
Length: 320 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 31mm x 162mm
Weight: 536g
RRP: £18.99
In a novel filled with names from legend, Briseis stands tall as a heroine: brave, smart and loyal. Barker's latest is a wonder.
This continuation of the Trojan woman's story feels like another victory for every person who was silenced by history, their story stolen from them
A stirring adventure set amid a misogynist dystopia
Barker is at her best when she evokes Hecuba's grief on the shore, surrounded by a group of female slaves with the ruined city behind them...
As a novelist, Barker has always looked on the world with the combination of a cold eye and a sympathetic understanding. Her characterisation is sharp, her sympathy deep. She extends it even to the often brutal men.
Her overall achievement is to have taken one of the great myths of European history, something that has permeated Western culture for 3,000 years, and made something new and immediate of it.
I'd still rather
read Barker's take on the gruesome
realities and costs of war - ancient
or modern - than any other novelist
out there.
Merciless, stripped of
consoling beauty, impressively bleak.
This is a powerful page-turner, bringing ancient characters and stories into full colour. Skip Homer, and just enjoy this epic read
Briseis . . . returns again in this rich, readable sequel . . . Barker brings to life the mythical Trojan women.