“‘We are more than our actions,’ said Leto. ‘We are the way we love others and the way they love us back.’ And the way that others will ruin themselves in our absence, the way that no one else will ever be good enough for life to be worth living.”
Each year twelve women in the failing kingdom of Ithaca must follow the sacrifice of Penelope’s twelve handmaids to protect the kingdom from Poseidon’s wrath. Leto is a young oracle who has been chosen as one of sacrifices for the year. She faces her own hanging and somehow survives, washing up on a mysterious island with another survivor, Melantho. She teaches Leto to survive in her new body, which transforms whenever water touches it and presses for Leto to return to the kingdom to break the curse.
Leto wants not only to end the curse but vengeance on the royal family who killed her mother and herself. But when she arrives, the prince is a little more dashing than she remembers and she struggles with the task ahead. As they research more into the source of the curse and what might break it, the three become much closer bonding over the trauma the gods have caused in their lives.
This one has some beautiful lesbian love, if you liked The Song of Achilles this one will be right up your alley, a great balance of action, magic and queer love.
Thanks to Harper Collins Childrens for advanced access to this novel. All opinions above are my own.
What do you prefer, a straight ahead myth retelling or a somewhat fantastical left turn of a retelling?
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