Bronze Age Greece Hist Fic Reading Order

It occurred to me this past weekend that you all might benefit from a reading order reference for the books all set in the shared world of HELEN OF SPARTA, in Bronze Age Greece, so I'm here to make it happen today!

These books, so far, except for SON OF ZEUS, all take place between the conception of Theseus and Odysseus's return home to Ithaca. That... probably will change, because I'm working on a Heracles book as we speak, and I have a larger Aethra project in the works as well! Something to look forward to, I suppose, and of course I will update this list when/if those titles are completed and released.

As things stand right now, if you'd like to read these works in chronological order inside the Bronze Age, here's where to start:

1) The Lion of Troezen (Novelette--launching on Patreon, January 2023) 

More than 40 years before Helen of Sparta, this novelette retells the myth of Theseus's conception, focusing on Aethra's extremely intimate relationship with Poseidon, and how that relationship alters the course of her life.

 

2) Ariadne and the Beast: A Short Story 

A little more than 25 years before Helen of Sparta. I guesstimate Theseus is in his late teens during the events of this story!

 

3) Tamer of Horses

~20 years before Helen of Sparta. Theseus and Pirithous are both kings of their respective domains, but still learning what that means.

 

4) Helen of Sparta

Theseus and Pirithous are both in their 40s and Heracles is older, still. 

 

5) By Helen's Hand 

Picks up right where Helen of Sparta leaves off. Pirithous's son by Hippodamia, Polypoetes, is of age to take over for his father as king of the Lapiths.

 

5a) A Broken Horse 

This novel is written but not yet published--I'm looking for an agent!--and follows both Paris and Polypoetes as they navigate the Trojan War.

 

6) The Siren's Song/A Sea of Sorrow

Takes place after the close of the Trojan War, as a retelling of The Odyssey. A Sea of Sorrow is in continuity with A Song of War, History 360's retelling of The Iliad, but my revised author's cut edition of The Siren's Song novella does exist within the same world as Helen of Sparta.

 

7) Son of Zeus

~3000 years or so after Helen of Sparta, this novel takes place in our modern world, and Pirithous is still in his 40s after being trapped in the chair of forgetfulness for millennia.

 All these titles, with the exception of Helen of Sparta and By Helen's Hand, were written to stand alone. You don't need to have read Tamer of Horses to enjoy Son of Zeus (I wrote Son of Zeus immediately after I finished writing Helen of Sparta, actually, before I had even written Tamer of Horses or By Helen's Hand.) And you don't need to read Ariadne to enjoy Helen of Sparta, though Theseus appears in both. 

You probably DO want to have read Helen of Sparta before you pick up By Helen's Hand, though, as they were written as a duology of Helen's life leading up to the Trojan War. And if you did happen to read Tamer of Horses before or after Helen of Sparta, it might enrich the experience of both books! If I've done my job right, you shouldn't need to have read either of Helen's books before A Broken Horse, either, when/if that makes it out into the wider world. Do I think you'll enjoy it more if you have? Yeah, of course. And even more again if you've read Tamer of Horses as well, since that's the story of Polypoetes's parents. But it shouldn't be a necessity. 

Consider them all just--companion novels, that allow you to travel a little deeper into the world and the stories of the characters you've met, either in reading Helen of Sparta, or in your own exploration of the myths themselves.

Tamer of Horses, Son of Zeus, and Ariadne and the Beast are all available in wide release through the digital retailer of your choice. Tamer of Horses and Son of Zeus are also both available in paperback for your physical reading pleasure--you should be able to order them from pretty much anywhere. (Here's a bookshop.org link to prove it! Alas, the Son of Zeus hardcover is Amazon Exclusive.) 

Ah! and before you go, The Siren's Song is going wide this week! Look for it in your library apps and available from non-amazon vendors at this link very soon!!!

---

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound

A Quick Update

Hi, I'm still here.

Yes, one day, I DO still want to write an Antiope and Theseus book. (And a book about Aethra. And a Heracles adventure. And more Polypoetes. And and and!)

No, I'm not writing it right now. (Sadface! Extreme Sadface!)

If you aren't subscribed to The Amaliad to stay up to date on my authorial adventures, you definitely should be! I always include any current sales in my newsletter and Lake Union has sales and promotions for my Helen books and DAUGHTER pretty regularly! Plus you'll hear about new projects there first, too. And! There are giveaways! And Subscriber Exclusive bonuses!

I'm currently catching up on Amalia Dillin projects that fell by the wayside while I was under deadline doing Amalia Carosella work, so you can check out my blog over there, too, for updates if you are morally opposed to newsletters. The biggest thing is that I'm devoting 2018 to writing Orc3 for my Orc Saga fans, and they've been waiting a long time because burnout so I'm trying to keep my focus there now that I have reclaimed my joy in writing again. And once that's done, I'm going to just write for the love of it wherever the creative winds take me, for myself, and try to not let the stress of publishing grind me into dust.

That said, if you loved DAUGHTER OF A THOUSAND YEARS, consider crossing over to my Amalia Dillin Fate of the Gods trilogy! FORGED BY FATE is a triple timeline, historical and contemporary fantasy timeslip, heavy on the mythic, and follows Thor, Adam, and Eve (yes, that Adam and Eve) from Creation into the present.

And of course don't forget to grab A SEA OF SORROW: A NOVEL OF ODYSSEUS, my H-Team adventure! It really is The Odyssey as you've never read it before, and I do not use that expression lightly because it makes me roll my eyes right out of my head whenever someone says it to me.

What else?

Hm. I think that's about it for the moment on my historical fiction side. I hope you'll stay tuned for whatever comes next, be it hist fic or contemporary romance or mythic fantasy, as Amalia Carosella or Amalia Dillin. And in the meantime, thanks so much for reading!!!

---

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound

The Siren's Song

I have to admit to a little trepidation when I came on board this latest H-Team adventure -- retelling The Odyssey without gods or magic?! The period might have been my wheelhouse, but that particular approach most definitely was not my usual style. Add to that the very careful dance of making sure that my contribution to this collaboration wasn't an inadvertent sequel to By Helen's Hand, and I worried, at first, that maybe I wasn't quite up to the challenge.

But then the sirens called me. I could hear the song. And I knew what I had to write. What I was desperate to write and retell. I knew the sirens wanted to sing through me.

Of course that also required a small amount of reshuffling. The sirens weren't initially part of the general proposed outline of our project, and I'm super grateful for the flexibility of my co-authors in making room to allow me to tell their tale! Because I knew exactly where I wanted to begin. I knew precisely how to approach their story and their history in a world without gods or magic.

Or at least, without the traditional idea of magic. I still had at my disposal the magic of storytelling--the magic of the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways we create our own narratives, spinning heroics and humor out of the mundane or the tragic. And what could possibly be more fitting in a retelling of the story of Odysseus than for my sirens to have rewoven their own history, their own tragedy, into something magical?

Once, we'd had wings.

That was the line upon which I built all the rest. A line that didn't make the cut into the final version of the story, but which became the very foundation of my poor, isolated, sirens and their history. Because in a world without gods or magic, it is the stories people tell themselves that matter most. Personal and family and community narratives were the only history they might know--and that went double for my lonely sirens.

So who were my sirens? How did they come to live upon their rocky, barren island to sing poor sailors to their doom? 

Grab your copy of A SEA OF SORROW: A NOVEL OF ODYSSEUS, and find out!

Amazon | Kobo | ibooks | B&N | Amazon UK
Goodreads

---

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound

Musing on: Penelope's Suitors

As part of my research for A SEA OF SORROW, of course I found myself rereading The Odyssey -- and I couldn't help but wonder, as I read:
Who *are* these men?

Slaughter of the Suitors via Wiki Commons (public domain)

We know some of their names, of course, and even who their fathers are. We know that they seem to have some pretty poor manners, and as guests and suitors they have overstayed their welcome to an extreme degree (though it seems Penelope is in part to blame for not sending them away, herself, perhaps, too.) But. Who are they in the greater scheme of Ithaca's kingdom and community, post Trojan War?

Presumably, Odysseus took a majority of able-bodied men with him to Troy to fight. We know these suitors are the sons of now-old men, noble houses of Ithaca who were part of Odysseus's assembly. The sons of men who are now too old and weak to rule them -- much like Laertes is too old and weak with grief and sorrow to guard Penelope and Telemachus from the suitors, or even to engage in Ithaca's assembly to any degree. Had they been younger men, the fathers of these suitors would have left 20 years earlier with Odysseus to fight, right? And if the suitors had been older men themselves, they also would have left, for the most part, 20 years ago to fight with Odysseus.

So are these Suitors second or third or fourth sons (of second wives, perhaps)? Not quite so young as Telemachus, clearly, who was an infant when Odysseus left, but old enough to see their brothers sail off in his company, and just a shade too young to follow? Old enough to grieve for their brothers who never returned home? Are they acting out, taking back what they lost in some way, by pillaging Odysseus's stores in his absense and courting his wife?

During Telemachus's assembly in book two, Mentor says:

"Think: not one of the people whom he ruled
remembers Odysseus now, that godlike man,
and kindly as a father to his children!" (Fagles, p 100)

Is he accusing the Suitors themselves of not knowing or remembering Odysseus, suggesting that perhaps they were too young to have really engaged with him in any meaningful way? Accusing the old men of the Assembly of forgetting the kindness of their king, or betraying the kindness that Odysseus showed them by not standing against the abuses of the suitors?

It seems likely that reinforcements came to support the Greeks (generic national identity used loosely, here), so why didn't these suitors travel to Troy to fight at some later point in the war? Or had they not yet quite come of age, even then? Say they were only 5 or 6, and hadn't quite reached manhood before Troy was sacked? But that would make them only 26 to Penelope's mid thirties, at the youngest, assuming she was in her early/mid-teens when she married Odysseus and bore him Telemachus, now nearing 20.

Odysseus mustered 12 ships when he initially sailed to Troy with the army, according to Homer's Catalogue of Ships, and in the Odyssey, Odysseus claims to have begun his journey from Troy with a dozen ships, still. twenty to thirty oars per ship would mean a minimum of 240 to 360 men -- none of which returned home, save Odysseus himself. Could resentment for the loss of so many have fueled the blind eye that these old men turned to their youngest/younger sons who lived? Or simply the desire to spoil them, because they had not been lost when so many others had been?

Honestly, I'm kind of shocked that upon his return Odysseus is allowed to keep his crown, after losing so many men -- hero-kings have been thrown out of power for less, after all -- but perhaps it is the slaughter of the suitors that secures his power in the end. The old men, after all, clearly don't have the strength to stand against him when they cannot stand against their own sons. And with the suitors' deaths, an entire generation of Ithacans, ultimately, is wiped out -- leaving Odysseus with no one to challenge him at all.

(crossposted)

***

Don't forget to grab A SEA OF SORROW from Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and B&N, (or even Amazon UK), or add it on goodreads!

ASOS releases October 17th!

---

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound