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

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Saint retells these stories as they’ve been told before, changing only the camera angles through which we view it, and the end result is… fine. She then spends the next 10 years planning to murder her husband when he comes home from Mycenae and see her trying to hold power in court. Saints considerable writing skills the book avoids this problem and is clearly laid out and entertaining. Elektra has always been an intriguing character who bridges Iphigenia’s murder and Agamemnon’s murder, but often gets minimized.

In Jennifer Saint’s prose you can hear the songs of the poets, feel the floors beneath your feet, smell the wood burning in the fire and experience the story of these three very different women as if you are there.Many of her actions and motivations might not feel justified but she is her father’s daughter and is unapologetic in her quest to avenge her father’s death and willing to sacrifice and bear the consequences of her actions.

I was again impressed with Jennifer Saint’s ability to craft an elegant retelling that is respectful of the source material and extends the myth bringing these tales of ancient Troy, Sparta and Mycenae vividly to life for her readers. The interest was also mainly in the second half of the book, and completely absorbed me at the end with a more than satisfying ending as the characters wrestle with their moral dilemma and thirst for revenge because that was what tradition dictated. felt there wasn’t enough new material built into the story, so it felt like a ‘telling’ rather than ‘retelling’ of a story I was already very familiar with.While I enjoyed Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, which I thought was an impressive debut, I found Elektra to be a more powerful and absorbing novel. 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. The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon - her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris.