Daughters of Sparta

February 1, 2021

USA TODAY best-selling Ackerman's Radar Girls tells the story of young Daisy Wilder, happy with her horses in Hawaii, who joins the real-life Women's Air Raid Defense after the attack on Pearl Harbor (100,000-copy first printing). Leave it to Chiaverini (e.g., Resistance Women) to write a book about The Women's March featuring three brave women who marched for the vote (200,000-copy first printing). In Three Words for Goodbye, New York Times best-selling coauthors Gaynor and Webb (Meet Me in Monaco) send estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers across 1937 Europe to deliver letters written by their dying grandmother. After the death in 1941 of the kidnapper who raised her in the Eastern European wilderness, a young German woman teaches a group of fleeing Jews how to survive in the forest while learning about the world's horrors in Harmel's The Forest of Vanishing Stars (150,000-copy first printing). A good companion to Natalie Haynes's A Thousand Ships, Pat Barker's The Women of Troy, and poet Anne Carson's graphic novel, The Trojan Women: A Comic, all 2021 titles, Heywood's Daughters of Sparta addresses the relationship between sisters Helen and Klytemnestra. In Tanabe's Woman of Intelligence, a frustrated 1950s Manhattan wife who once worked as a UN translator wrenches open her cage doors by agreeing to work as an FBI informant (60,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 18, 2021

DEBUT Classicist Heywood's debut novel creatively explores why Helen of Troy, "the most beautiful woman in the world," traveled from her native Sparta to the city of Troy. Greek mythology recounts the devastating battle that ensued on Helen's behalf; it has baffled philosophers, historians, and artists across the ages. Why did Helen leave behind her family and home in Sparta? What sort of influence did Paris possess to lead her away to Troy? Heywood shows that motives always look different on the surface until you delve deep into someone's mind. She skillfully depicts the experiences of Helen and her sister Clytemnestra, two young women disenchanted with their traditional roles as royal married women. Troubled and unhappy, they must navigate the societal expectations that threaten to harm them; Clytemnestra's docility conflicts with her desire to seek justice against her husband for his crimes, and Helen's struggle with labor and birth leads her to shun motherhood. Heywood provides a look at the women behind the myth as she explores each sister's journey to finding acceptance and peace in a turbulent world. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Madeline Miller or readers interested in Greek mythology, historical fiction, and women leading characters.--Monique Martinez, Univ. of North Georgia Lib., Dahlonega

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2021
Heywood's engrossing first novel follows the fortunes of two of the most famous women in the ancient world, the sisters and princesses Klytemnestra and Helen, renowned for her exquisite beauty. Heywood introduces them as girls, daughters of the king of Sparta, who already know at a young age that they have important destinies. Klytemnestra, the elder, expects to be the heir to the Spartan throne, so she's shocked when her father decides to marry her off to Agamemnon of Mycenae, which will separate her from her family. Helen is anointed the heir instead, in part as cover for her dubious parentage, and suitors from all over the realm show up to compete for her hand. She and her father settle on Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother, but after the harrowing birth of her daughter, Helen starts to pull away from her husband, setting off a chain of events that culminates in her absconding with the handsome knave Paris and igniting the Trojan War. Readers intimately familiar with the mythology and those new to this classic story alike will find themselves breathlessly turning the pages as Heywood unspools the tragic consequences of Helen's actions and the horrific sacrifice Klytemnestra is forced to make. An utterly spellbinding historical yarn.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.