Claire Heywood

For millennia, men have told the legend of the woman whose face launched a thousand ships--but now it's time to hear her side of the story. Daughters of Sparta is a tale of secrets, love, and tragedy from the women behind mythology's most devastating war, the infamous Helen and her sister Klytemnestra. As princesses of Sparta, Helen and Klytemnestra have known nothing but luxury and plenty. With their high birth and unrivaled beauty, they are the envy of all of Greece. But such privilege comes at a cost. While still only girls, the sisters are separated and married to foreign kings of their father's choosing--the powerful Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaos. Yet even as Queens, each is only expected to do two things: birth an heir and embody the meek, demure nature that is expected of women. But when the weight of their husbands' neglect, cruelty, and ambition becomes too heavy to bear, Helen and Klytemnestra must push against the constraints of their society to carve new lives for themselves, and in doing so, make waves that will ripple throughout the next three thousand years. Daughters of Sparta is a vivid and illuminating reimagining of the Siege of Troy, told through the perspectives of two women whose voices have been ignored for far too long.

Daughters of Sparta

The prologue hits you immediately with this great line 

Riley

“How had it come to this? How did any evil come to be? Was it the work of the gods? A punishment for some other evil? Or did they sit above, impassive, watching as one stone hit another, and another? Blank faces blinking in the dust of the landslide”.

“She wanted love and passion, such as she had heard about in all those stories Nestra had told her when they were little. She wanted a connection. She wanted to share every peak and trough of her life with her husband. But sometimes she felt as though she were married to a stone wall.”

Amira BEN

She'd been so stupid today, though. Why had she been so desperate for Theseus to like her ? He was just a stupid boy.

There were times she felt frustrated to have been born a girl. She wanted freedom. She wanted authority. She wanted to do something other than work wool all day. To ride and hunt and travel and debate, as she saw her brothers do. To compete and win prizes, to compose songs and not just dance to them, to speak and really be heard.

Yes, she would be the best bride she could be. Beautiful and obedient. The best wife, the best mother, the best woman. That was the path before her now- it all began here. So much lay beyond her control but this, 

And as he came around to examine her flanks, the line of her back, she was glad he could not see her grit her teeth- or perhaps he would like to check them, too ?

. The sight of it made her feel ill. It made her think of her first 'woman's blood', as Thekla had called it. This was not the first, nor would it be the last of her blood taken in payment for womanhood.

As her husband's breathing slowed and turned to snores, she wondered why she had been so desperate to become a woman. How stupid she had been. Womanhood was strange and painful and humiliating. And there was no going back.

Perhaps the biggest difference of all was the absence of her husband. Up here there was no king, only a queen. Up here she answered to no one but herself and the gods. Up here, she had power.

Klytemnestra was dumbfounded by the man's torrent of words. His concern was so heartfelt, his distress so sincere. Perhaps she had been too long in Mycenae, but she could not remember seeing a man show such care for the happiness of a girl.

Daughters of Sparta quotes

Join the club