Doubleday The Women of Troy

The story of Helen and the siege of Troy may be the greatest tale ever told, and Pat Barker's retelling of parts of the tale, from the perspective of some of the women involved, is excellent. This book follows on from the earlier Silence of the Girls in telling the tale mainly of Briseis and her fate in the Greek camp.This book starts inside the Trojan horse, and quickly moves through the fall of Troy to the aftermath, with the Greeks unable to set sail for home with their booty, including the women they enslaved, due to unfavourable winds. The atmosphere is tense, and for the Trojan women held in the camp dangerous, humiliating and very uncertain.It has long been hard to see the Greek 'heroes' as worthy of admiration, and Pat Barker's books, told largely form a Trojan perspective, only add to that impression.On its own this is a great tale, beautifully told, but it would be worth reading the earlier book, Silence of the Girls, first, and you may well benefit from a fair understanding of Homer's tale - but in any event this is a good story, told with humanity and style and well worth reading

I read and loved silence of the girls, and have read many of the retellings of greek myths published in the last ten years. Personally I struggled to embed myself in this story for roughly the first half, and would possibly have given up had I not enjoyed the earlier book. The last third of the book was where I felt it all came together and all the strands were complete.Not sure I would reread this book but if you enjoyed "Silence of the girls" or "Achilles song" then I would advise ginving this one a go.

It was interesting consideration of what happened to the women of Troy following the fall of the City. I was reading it while seeing on my TV what was happening to women in Afghanistan following the fall of the country under the Taliban. The women were known to me reading classical texts, particularly the play 'Trojan Women' but in this book 'flesh is put on the bones'.

I am thoroughly enjoying the book, a good sequel to The Silence of the Girls.I was disappointed that although the seller advised moderate damage to the cover, he did not state that the dust cover was missing.

Better than the first retelling of Greek drama.