Daughters of Sparta

 

I am on a quest to find a writer of updated greek myth that I like as much as I like Natalie Haynes and this popped up on Audible as a recommendation for me when I was wondering what to spend my February credit on. A reviewer on there (yes, I know!) said it was right up there with the best of them and so I took a punt.  

What can I say? It's the story of Clytemnestra and Helen, who I honestly didn't realise were sisters, just two unrelated women married to two brothers.  I think in many ways it was a good effort,  but from my audible review 

Well, the positive first. The author obviously wanted to create a psychologically convincing narrative for Clytemnestra and Helen: the things they do and the possible motivations behind them. in this she is successful.

That said the construction of the book is clunky and the writing very flat.

I am not sure why the narrator has used the pronunciations of the names that she has: they are not the standardised ones we know, nor are they authentically Greek.They're just weird. She also makes all the men sound the same by giving them a strange unplaceable accent and presenting them as indistinguishable thugs.

you will gather that it is maybe better read than listened to. Or maybe just left alone. I think if you quite often have chapter headings that go 'six months later'. 'two years later' and even  'nine years later' then you really need to be looking at how you're telling this story. Perhaps consider a flashback technique? 

I don't regret the time I spent listening to it - I rarely do, since i am usually doing something else useful while I listen, but I won't be rushing off to find any more by Heywood. 

On a related note it was Saturday Slaughters at the weekend. The book was The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly. I was going to give up at the end of Chapter 9 but bashed on through Chapter 10 as it took me to page 109 and meant I could say I had read the first 100 pages. There was an excellent turnout for the meeting and, in my dislike of the book I was in a minority of two. This possibly means any negative book reviews I do here should be ignored!