'Claire North brings a powerful, fresh, and unflinching voice to ancient myth-darkly fascinating, raw and breathtaking.' -Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne And there is no corner of the land where intrigue does not reign. Because on Ithaca, everyone watches, including the gods. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive.īut all of that is about to change. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne-not yet. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom.

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. 'The greatest power we women can own, is that we take in secret. A masterpiece of imaginative storytelling from World Fantasy award-winning author Claire North, this is the untold story of Penelope of Ithaca-famed wife of Odysseus-and the other abandoned women of the isle, as they fight for the survival of their kingdom under the watchful eyes of the goddesses of Olympus.

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