Ithaca

This novel reimagines Homer's Odyssey from the perspective of the women of Ithaca, narrated by Hera, queen of the Greek gods. Hera explains that she works secretly on Ithaca because the island is too insignificant for the other gods to notice, allowing her to act without censure from her husband Zeus or her stepdaughter Athena, goddess of wisdom and war.

Eighteen years have passed since Odysseus, king of Ithaca, sailed to the Trojan War. Troy fell eight years ago, but Odysseus has not returned; on the distant island of Ogygia, he lies in the arms of the nymph Calypso. Back on Ithaca, nearly 100 suitors feast on his provisions and demand that his wife Penelope choose a new husband. Penelope has delayed them for years, most notably by secretly unraveling each night most of the shroud she weaves by day.

The novel opens when raiders attack Phenera, a small coastal village. They take the youngest and strongest as slaves and burn homes. A young woman from Phenera named Teodora escapes into the hills with Semele, an old farmer. In the palace, Penelope's council of elderly advisors debates the response. Her 18-year-old son Telemachus, desperate to prove himself worthy of his father, insists on raising a militia. Penelope warns that arming men loyal to his name will provoke the suitors into killing him. Among the suitors, Hera notes Andraemon, a veteran of Troy, and Kenamon, an Egyptian who surprises Penelope during a private audience with his candor and genuine laughter.

Penelope suspects the raids are not the work of genuine Illyrians. The raiders carried Greek weapons and straight blades rather than the curved swords Illyrians use, and the attacks are too frequent and well-targeted, suggesting someone with local knowledge directs them. At Phenera's ruins, her maid Eos, Penelope's most trusted attendant, discovers a dead smuggler carrying a hidden ring stamped with the royal seal of Agamemnon, the most powerful king in Greece. Penelope pockets the ring.

Three ships soon land bearing Orestes and Elektra, Agamemnon's children. Agamemnon has been killed by his wife Clytemnestra, Penelope's cousin. Hera recounts the backstory: Agamemnon seized Clytemnestra by killing her first husband and raping her. Upon returning from Troy, he again beat and raped her for governing in his absence. She killed him with the knife he gave her as a wedding gift. Elektra reveals that Orestes cannot claim the Mycenaean throne until he avenges his father by killing their mother, who she believes has fled through Ithaca. Penelope recognizes that if Orestes fails, his uncle Menelaus of Sparta will seize all of Greece, threatening Ithaca's independence. She agrees to help while secretly working to find Clytemnestra first.

Through careful manipulation, planting rumors about a hidden escape boat, Penelope flushes Clytemnestra from sanctuary in the temple of Artemis. Semele's armed women intercept the fleeing queen. At Semele's farm, Clytemnestra is defiant, calling Penelope "little duck" as she did in childhood, but confirms the Phenera raiders were Greeks in Illyrian disguise. Penelope offers shelter until the Mycenaeans leave.

Meanwhile, Penelope builds secret defenses. She hires Priene, a scarred warrior woman from the east whose queen Penthesilea was killed by the Greek warrior Achilles at Troy. In forest groves, Priene trains a growing force of Ithaca's women in archery, blade work, traps, and fire. Penelope's condition is absolute: No man can survive to reveal that women defended the island.

Penelope also engineers a false trail, sending Agamemnon's ring north through Ourania, her spymaster, so it surfaces as evidence Clytemnestra has fled by ship. Orestes sails in pursuit. Elektra stays, suspicious but unable to prove the deception.

Peisenor, one of Penelope's elderly veteran councillors, raises a militia of roughly 40 boys and old men, but it proves disastrously inadequate. When Andraemon's raiders attack the farm of Laertes, Odysseus's elderly father, the militia is scattered guarding separate properties. Telemachus leads 16 boys to intercept the returning raiders, and the experienced pirates cut through them. Kenamon arrives with a javelin, kills a pirate, and drags Telemachus to safety. The pirates kill 12 of the 16 boys. In the aftermath, Elektra kneels before the wounded Telemachus and says one word: "Vengeance." He repeats it and rises. When Penelope tries to tend his wounds, he screams, "I do not need my mother!" Grateful for Kenamon's rescue, Telemachus later asks the Egyptian to train him, and the two form a bond.

Penelope confronts Andraemon, revealing she knows he commands the raiders, and refuses his marriage offer. Leaneira, a Trojan slave assigned to watch Andraemon and now his lover, steals his identifying token, a stone from Troy, while he sleeps. When the suitor Eupheithes publicly exposes Penelope's deception with the shroud, the hall teeters toward violence until Elektra shames the suitors into silence, invoking Mycenae's authority.

Penelope and Elektra reach a private understanding: Elektra needs Clytemnestra dead so Orestes can rule, and Penelope needs Mycenae's protection. Penelope arranges for Clytemnestra to be brought to a beach under pretense of escape, where her children wait. Hera walks beside Clytemnestra, filling her mind with memories of glory. On the shore, Clytemnestra faces Orestes with dignity. Elektra wraps her hands around her brother's on the sword hilt and drives the blade home. Hera cradles Clytemnestra as she dies.

When the next full moon comes, Andraemon's raiders sail into a trap. Leaneira has led them to believe a cave holds hidden treasure; inside they find only oil. Priene's women attack from concealment, ignite the cave, and cut down survivors along the path to their ships, where the women have already killed the guards. Hera has earlier bargained for Athena's silence about the women warriors and recruited the goddess Artemis to lend divine strength to the archers; both deities fight alongside the mortals. No pirate survives. The bodies are displayed with their Greek weapons beside their Illyrian disguises, Andraemon's stolen token tied around his lieutenant Minta's neck.

Medon, Odysseus's councillor, publicly accuses Andraemon. The suitor draws a knife and charges at Penelope, but Eos drives a hidden blade into his ribs. Penelope faints helpfully to the floor.

Priene commits to staying on Ithaca, expanding the women's force to nearly 90 fighters. But Telemachus refuses to speak to his mother, barricading himself in his room. Athena, who claimed Telemachus as her own in her bargain with Hera, arranges a ship and guides him to sea in search of his father. Penelope runs barefoot to the docks screaming his name, but the ship has already cleared the harbor. She collapses and weeps openly for the first time. No god answers her cry save the Furies, ancient spirits who punish those who spill a mother's blood. They hear her despair, spread their wings, and fly cackling across the sea.