A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, from Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus to the three goddesses whose feud started it all - these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by history’s most infamous war.

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I have been waiting a long time for a retelling this great. Natalie Haynes absolutely NAILED this genre. I had my hesitations, I’ve read quite a few sub-par greek retellings lately. Ones that changed the mythology to fit the authors narrative, ones that glorified these brutal stories, and ones that lacked the emotion and poetry of the original mythologies. This one, however, was everything I’ve been looking for and then more. The retelling of Homeric Epics have a special place in my heart because those were the stories that got me through my first year of Uni (thank you, European Lit class, you were rad). The stories of Achilles and Odysseus have always been so full of intrigue but hearing the other side of the tale, the women’s side, was something I’d been longing for. I think Haynes did an amazing job not only portraying the lost stories of these women throughout and after the Trojan war but she did so while staying true to the original myths and legends. It was written like an ancient greek poem (my favourite part was the interjection of the Muse of Epic Poetry helping tell this tale). Fantastic read, if you’re a fan of mythology and/or have read The Iliad and The Odyssey, you absolutely NEED to read this book.

This book changes throughout timelines going back in forth between different characters viewpoints and their experiences before and after the war. We get to read from many of the key players: Penelope, Hecabe, Cassandra, Athene, Aphrodite, and Hera as well as some more minor characters. I think this really highlighted that war touches everyone, even people you don’t hear about because war decimates so many lives. I liked reading more into that, even if it was just one chapter of one woman who lives a short life, seeing her perspective on how this war so many miles away torched her life was so fascinating.

The character development was fantastic, it succeeded where Ariadne did not in portraying “sheltered” or “naive” women being thrust into unseemly and dangerous situations and how they are forced to grow and change in order to survive. Women back then may have been expected to fit certain roles but it’s quite clear even in the original poems how well some of these women were able to manipulate things to their favour. I loved seeing those little intricacies, how one lie or one suggestion could change the turn of an entire army. The changing viewpoints also let us see the horrors from either side. We sympathized with the Trojan women whose lives were turned upside down by the “savage” Greeks, but we also seen how so many Greek women’s families were destroyed because of the hubris of Troy. There was no right or wrong side in this tale, each side had losses and heartbreak all because of the decisions of a few men. The only thing I didn’t like is that no matter the side, Helen was a villain. And in my opinion, she was manipulated just as much as the rest and was as much of a victim, with two armies blaming her for their strife.

The characters drove the story, we seen all through their varying narratives and each one was so unique but two of them stand out to me more than the rest. First of all, Cassandra was so well portrayed, better than any retelling I’ve ever read. The subtle nods to her curse before we ever get to her side of the story, the trauma she’s been through, the absolute heartbreak of the things she sees and how she knows there’s nothing that can be done, that no one would believe her, the treatment from her family and friends for her “insanity”, it was all so heartbreaking yet something I think could relate well today in a lot of situations ( in the misunderstanding and mistreating of mental health). Penelope stole the show. I lived for her sarcastic and scornful narrative. She was always such a strong and cunning character in my mind and her role in Odysseus’s homecoming was always my favourite part of that story so seeing insights into her life as she hears of her husbands journeys, her hurts and her worries, was such a treat in this novel. She was never naive or stupid, never a lonely widow waiting home, with nothing to do, for her husbands return. She ruled in his stead for twenty years and kept vicious suitors at bay for nearly as long, she is a force to be reckoned with and this book did her so much justice.

I think this tops all other retellings for me and it’s made me want to dive back into the originals now just to see how accurate this book was. I loved it, it was beautiful and I gave it 5 stars.