Elektra: No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller from the Author of ARIADNE

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Elektra by Jennifer Saint is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of the same name. It is narrated by three women. First Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen of Troy, the woman famed for launching a thousand ships. She is also the wife of Agamemnon the king who leads this massive siege of Troy to retrieve Helen, the wife of his brother, Menelaus.Next we have Cassandra the princess of Troy who upon refusing the god Apollo’s advances was cursed to be able to foretell the future but never be believed. Finally we have Elektra the youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. She is fiercely loyal to her father and becomes bitterly estranged from her mother. Much is written of the men, gods and demigods who fought the 10 year Trojan war but very little is ever portrayed about the.women effected by it. By writing this utilizing the 3 female narrators we finally get the female perspective. I cannot hope for the future, for I know what it is to become.Whenever I'm in a reading slump and I need something to shake me out of my funk, Greek mythology is what I reach for. The tales of passion and tragedy, war and loss, glory and triumph always hit the right spot for me. So I'm a bit flummoxed that Elektra didn't turn out to be the reading experience I was hoping for. Menelaus can help Father with the ruling of Sparta,” Helen said. “And, of course, Father can help him in return.” Cassandra, the Princess of Troy, named the mad daughter. She says no to a God and is cursed with the sight while no one will believe a word she says. Plagued by knowledge, and unbelieved, she does essentially go mad. But only in the way someone not believed can. All because she said no. A woman's grief. In this, it's mostly a whimper and daddy worship and mommy hating her husband and taking a lover and then going "Oh, My" when crap hits the fan. And then we have some of the OTHER more memorable female characters from across Greece, on the other side of the war, to give a counterpoint, but it's weird and hardly necessary at all except to bring in the action that has been so missing from the primary tale.

I see it all the time, in my mind’s eye. How he will storm the gates of the city; how they will fall cowering at his feet at last. And after it all, he will come home to me. His loyal daughter, waiting here for him as year after year passes.” To be blessed by Zeus in such a way was a thing of glory. That’s what everyone said. If Leda, our mother, had been deemed lovely enough by the ruler of the gods himself, it was a great honor to our family. It was not a disgrace to our father to raise the product of such a union himself. Di certo il peggior retelling di mitologia greca che io abbia mai letto, tanto da convincermi a non leggerne ulteriori in futuro. Il debutto di Jennifer Saint, Ariadne, per quanto con i propri difetti, aveva dei pregi. Purtroppo, non ne ho trovati in Elektra. When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods - drawing their attention can cost you everything. Cassandra is a princess of Troy and priestess to Apollo, cursed to see the future and never be believed.This wonderful book is told from the POVs of all three women and each chapter is clearly labelled so you know who’s POV you’re reading at any time. Saint really puts her own style and voice to these myths in a way that very few have successfully accomplished, and you really are able to fully comprehend all that has happened to the ladies, and just what mindset and reasoning you would have to kill your own mother and whether or not it was morally right to do so. Because let’s face it, the Gods did not approve of family murders. I shuddered. “He won’t want to kill a little boy, though, surely?” I could understand the brutal logic of it, but I couldn’t bring myself to picture the young men I’d seen in that hall plunging a sword into a weeping child. As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur - Minos's greatest shame and Ariadne's brother - demands blood every year. I rolled my eyes. Odysseus was here as one of Helen’s suitors just like the rest of them, but of course nothing that man did was as it seemed. We could rather do with his famous wits in this situation, I thought, frustrated that he instead preferred to lose himself in some romantic daydream. Another issue is the uneven pacing. Once you get past the exciting initial setup, it feels like things start to slow down. And since the Trojan War is well known in Greek mythology, a lot of what's in here isn't new. So when you put the two things together, a good chunk of the latter part of this book felt like a trudge, without the spark of something new and exciting to engage the reader.

We all know the story, the curse of House of Atreus, fratricide, sacrificing daughter; a long war that began in the name of only one woman; and the prophecy for the seventh child of Queen Hecabe.Elekra, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon's daughter, blinded by love. She can't understand that the God's are cruel, that maybe her father was wrong for all he did, and clouded by grief over his loss, her life becomes tainted with ending her mother's. A daughter's grief. The spellbinding new retelling of the Trojan War drawn from the perspective of the fearless women at the heart of it all.** A telling / retelling of one of Greek mythologies best known stories - the siege of Troy as the author breathes life, personality and soul into the story of Troy and all the best known characters with a lot of new faces as this particular story focuses on the women of this timeless tale.

Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne was featured in our best books of 2021 list and within just a few chapters of Elektra, it’s clear that the author’s follow-up book will be equally lauded and adored. Set in the same world of Greek mythology but centred on different characters, Elektra is the story of three women in ancient Greece: Clytemnestra – the oft overlooked sister of Helen of Troy and the wife of Agamemnon; Cassandra – the cursed Princess of Troy trapped in a besieged city, and Elektra, Clytemnestra’s youngest daughter, who finds herself torn between her father’s bloodlust and her mother’s vengeance. Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae of the House of Atreus, mother of Iphigenia, Elektra and Orestes. Her rage resulting from Agamemnon’s sacrifice of her firstborn daughter Iphigenia in Aulis before the Trojan War wreaks havoc in Mycenae and the cursed House of Atreus I was glued to it from beginning to end and could not wait to recommend to my friends afterwards.' REAL READER REVIEWand, because of that, i think i now prefer reimaginings, rather than faithful retellings, which is what this book is.