
Revisiting the Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Heroic Legend
Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington
Book
Bringing alive the dramatic poems of Old Norse heroic legend, this new collection offers accessible,...

The Sea in the Greek Imagination
Book
The sea is omnipresent in Greek life. Visible from nearly everywhere, the sea represents the life...
Lucy enjoys her alone time think, and enjoys the time she spends with her children. She works from home since having had the children. She had a good job, had even started to study for a PhD at one point, and she appears to be happy with her life as it is. Until an unexpected phone call one evening. Jake, her husband, is late home from work, and the stranger on the phone tells Lucy that her husband is having an affair with his wife. Lucy is stunned. Jake is full of remorse when she tells him, and he tells her that she can punish him three times - as long as they stay together.
This book looks at how punishment skirts very closely to revenge, and the effect that it can have on your own sanity. It uses mythology and the myth of the Harpy, to exact that revenge. As time progresses and Lucy becomes more embroiled in her Harpy-like acts of revenge, there are excerpts that seem to come from a Harpy’s point of view. I liked these parts. They seemed to revel in the feelings of vengeance, something that all ‘nice’ girls are taught not to do. Instead of turning the other cheek, Lucy goes for full-on retribution.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s a short, totally absorbing read, and is the second book I’ve read and enjoyed by Megan Hunter. I’m looking forward to whatever comes next!

Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves
Book
'Required reading.' - Cosmopolitan 'This should be read as a sacred text. Here, you will bear...

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft
Book
A young adult fiction anthology of 15 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic...

Medousa
Book
Classic Greek mythology paints Medousa as one of the most loathsome creatures of the ancient world....

The Camelot Shadow
Book
"A chance to save her. Improbably, impossibly, inconceivably." Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam spends...

The Undine's Tear (Rise of the Grigori #1)
Book
She's destined to save the world . . . if she doesn't destroy it first. Calandra’s destiny is...
Young Adult Fantasy Mythology

ClareR (5864 KP) rated The Heroines in Books
Oct 29, 2023
Laura Shepperson gives voice to the women in the myths, and we see the story of Theseus and Phaedra from Phaedra’s point of view. There’s also a chorus of women who are suffering under the mistreatment of the men in Theseus’ palace. Servants and slave women had to do as they were told. The struggle for the women against this patriarchal system is at times violent, and the women rarely come out of it well.
There were a lot of characters in this, and I wonder if all of them were necessary. I’ll be honest, and it could be down to the good ole peri-meno brain, I did get a little confused at all the characters, but it didn’t spoil the story!
I enjoyed this quick read (ok, I didn’t put it down!). It gave me enjoyment for a couple of days - and that’s what reading is all about really, isn’t it!