I was bias about this book from the start because I love Clytemnestra so, so much. But the narrative combination of having Clytemnestra, Cassandra, AND Elektra speak was so clever, because I felt like I got to hate Agammenon from so many different perspectives.

More seriously, this story was elegantly told, balancing stories of family curses, magic, the gods and how painful it can feel to be alone cleverly.

Elektra is a stunning feminist retelling of the most well-known Greek myth of Troy. This story offers an emotive gut-wrenching new perspective that considers what it means to be a daughter, a sister, a wife and mother. All of the women in this story - Clytemnestra, Cassandra and Elektra - have an engaging and gripping point of view, and I really enjoyed reading from Clytemnestra's perspective. Her story was one of heartbreak, anguish and revenge, I loved reading about her character and her motivations as more and more tragedy was bestowed upon her. This book was full of passion, drama and tragedy like any good Greek myth and fans of retellings will adore this novel!

Greek mythology is my catnip, and Elektra was the only thing I wanted to listen to for the week it took me to finish it (work and families can be really inconvenient sometimes!).

Elektra by Jennifer Saint is told from three female perspectives: Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen, the wife of Agamemnon; Cassandra, a Princess of Troy; and Elektra, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s youngest daughter.

The things these women had to put up with! Clytemnestra’s husband Agamemnon, acts like a madman (but it’s ok, it’s all for the Gods!) and she’s supposed to accept it all. Except she doesn’t.

Cassandra is treated like a madwoman after she’s cursed by Apollo. She can tell the future, but no-one believes her. So they only have themselves to blame when Troy is destroyed.

And then there’s Elektra. She seems to have fully bought into the whole “men/ daddy knows best, and anyway, he’s a hero” story. She’s a young woman who adores her father and believes he can do no wrong. She can’t understand her mothers reaction to the sacrifice of her eldest daughter and Elektra’s sister. Can we blame Elektra though? Probably. She certainly knows how to play the long game.

The narrators were well chosen, and really helped to add life and vigour to the characters of the three women. Listening to these Greek myths haas added something extra special to the stories - after all, I’ve read these stories so many times over the years in different forms. And I still can’t see a time where they’ll get old. In every retelling there’s a different angle, and I don’t think I can express enough how much I enjoy the story told from the women’s points of view.

Elektra is just fabulous - a timeless story about strong women.

'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint. I enjoyed this retelling and spin on the ancient Greek myths, however, I felt the book should have been called Cassandra or Clytemnestra as they seem to feature so heavily throughout the book. Consumed by the sacrifice of Iphigenia, 'Elektra' focuses on the grief and rage of those left behind. I found Elektra quite annoying as a character and definitely thought she'd cut off her nose to spite her face when she lived a poorer life. I knew how it ended but, I was still rooting for Clytemnestra to kill her husband as payback for Iphigenia. I did not sympathise at all with Aegisthus and found him quite ruthless when he tried to command Clytemnestra. I listened to this book and have purchased a copy as well. An easy read and explains the myths well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an ARC of this book.

Elektra started off slow with chapters that introduce the reader to the characters and set the scene of the Trojan war. The characters were well-developed and the different POVs gave a voice to all of them. Even though I am usually someone that enjoys multiple POVs, I think it would have been better to just stick to two.

It was overall an interesting read. The end seemed a bit rushed off, but overall enjoyed this Greek retelling.

This is a spellbinding and powerfully emotive reimagining of the story of Helen of Troy through the perspectives of her sister Clytemnestra and her youngest niece Electrabel (women from the House of Atreus), along with Cassandra of Troy.
A truly remarkable novel that will immerse its readers into a seductive story of fierce female rage, vengeance, Gods and fickle men; of ancient curses, betrayal, sacrifices and war.
This was a brilliant read! Jennifer Saint has skilfully made her mark amongst writers of Greek Mythology retellings and I’m excited to read more from her.

The only reason why I didn’t give it 5 stars was because I hated Elektra and didn’t enjoy her part of the story. Whereas, Cassandra was amazing!

I enjoyed this reworking of the Greek myths as it focused on three strong female characters: Electra; Clytemnestra and Cassandra. Given their opposing ‘sides’ in the Trojan war, I thought it clever to juxtapose their different perspectives.

This book confirms for me that Jennifer Saint is on par with Madeline Miller when it comes to Ancient Greek retellings. I personally really enjoyed Ariadne, but Elektra knocks it out of the park. Saint expertly weaves together three totally different yet cohesive narratives and recounts the famous Trojan War from points of view often not considered, though they play such integral parts.

Not only was the writing beautiful and gut-wrenching, but it was able to draw me in so completely that it elicited physical reactions from me, with my heart literally racing with how much I wanted to fight Elektra. I was able to engage critically with this book and recognise how talented Saint is at writing the conflicts the characters go through, but equally I just wanted to scream at Elektra. For me, Clytemnestra was the best part of this book.

Reading the book via audiobook, and listening to the three very different narrators was amazing, and it really added to the immersive and atmospheric experience. The voice actors did a wonderful job, and made each of the three characters stand out as their own being,

Thank you to Headline Audio and NetGalley for providing me with an Audio ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book was beautiful telling all the stories of the women left behind in the Trojan war. The author really embodied each different womans experience and relays it to the reader so we feel their pain, sorrow and betrayal.

I really enjoyed Elektra, it was easy to listen and get in to and I definitely plan on listening to more of Saint's mythological story retellings.

Thanks to the publisher for granting me a copy of an eAlc in exchange for an honest review.

Brilliant narration from all narrators, each doing a great job making unique voices shine throughout the novel.

I enjoyed the book well enough, but was more enamoured with the first half and stories which were not centred around Elektra. It was easily accessible while still being not a light read.

Definitely a book to add to your Greek Retelling TBR.

Not the most novel book about Greek mythos out there but a decent read all the same. Elektra actually follows the stories of three women and it is a bitter irony that the book's namesake turns out to be the least interesting of the lot. I found the first half of the book to be most enthralling and enjoyed reading about Clytemnestra and Cassandra's woes in equal measure but the story definitely fell off for me about halfway through. A decent audiobook though and I can't fault the narrating! Just the plot fizzling out a little.

An intriguing retelling of the War of Troy from the viewpoints of three women embedded at the very heart of it; Cassandra Princess of Troy - blessed by Apollo with the gift of prophecy, Clytemnestra wife of Agamemnon, and Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.



Elektra does not appear until about halfway through and we don’t learn an awful lot about her overall, which was surprising given the eponymous title. I can see that the author was laying the groundwork for the climax of the storyline as there is a definite building of tension, culminating in a series of disastrous events. So it didn’t bother me too much, however a bit more about Elektra earlier on would have been nice.



The narrators are all excellent and suit the writing style well elevating the story.

Thoroughly enjoyed this character driven exploration of the Trojan War - particularly the feminist povs. I think I did expect the story to be more centred on Elektra as she is the titular character, but I did thoroughly enjoy the story from the other perspectives too.

Whilst Elektra gets the limelight in the title, I think it was Clytemnestra’s pov that stole the show for me - I think partially because it felt like she was given more of the storyline and she spans the full length and particularly in the audio narration I felt that her emotions were depicted perfectly. I think Cassandra is a fascinating character and I felt like I was left wanting more from her, she could have had a book of her own!

Overall I thought this was a great retelling that was a little bit different from the average Trojan War story. The audio was excellent, each character was well delivered and as the story was so character driven the narration really did make it so that you felt like each character was talking to you.

Would definitely recommend to lovers of Greek mythology and retellings.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my audio copy.

This book follows 3 separate women in the war of troy. Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon and mother of Elektra. Elektra herself and Cassandra, a sister to Hector and Paris of troy. When Agamemnon sails for Troy he sacrifices one of his daughters Iphigenia to the gods. Filled with hate an ideas of revenge, Clytemnestra spends the next 10 years plotting to kill her husband. Elektra misses her father and cannot wait for the day until he returns. As her mother wallows in her grief for Iphigenia, Elektra and her siblings are left to their own devices and Elektra often wishes for thing to go back to how they were. Cassandra has been cursed by Apollo for denying him, so whilst she has the gift of sight no-one believes her and thinks she's mad.

Out of all of the 3 story lines, I enjoyed Elektra's story the most as she appears to be in my opinion the strongest woman/character. The story was very slow at the start, and it talks you quite a long time to actually get into the book before you figure out where the direction is heading for each of these women. I really hated Clytemnestra as her need for vengeance against Agamemnon made me dislike her more and more as the book progressed. At first you sympathise with her plight, but after time it just feels tedious and the character arc is none existent.

This book didn't quite nail it on the head, and I often found this book at times a little lacking. The book feels very much the same to all of the other stories of Troy that I have read and reminded me very much of 'A thousand ships'. I did really enjoy the narrators of this book, they gave the book more life to the characters compared to a single narrator. Different narrators allowed me to more easily follow along with the separate story lines.

It takes a special skill to make a tale as old as time feel fresh and new. In Elektra, Saint manages to stay true to the source material whilst adding depth to these female characters who have been resigned to be footnotes for far too long.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

I jumped at the chance to listen to this one! After Ariadne this was sure to be a great book and I was very lucky to be able to read my physical copy alongside the audiobook all thanks to NetGalley and Headline Audio!

I enjoyed the story, I did however feel as though Elektra’s POV and plot points were not as explored as they could have been, we were instead treated to more of a POV from both Cassandra, the princess of Troy and Clytemnestra. Elektra was depicted as being a little whiny for me.

The narration was fabulous and it definitely added to the experience of this book for me! It was much more angsty than the first Saint I read, and I felt that the pace was reasonably quick.

I think it’s definitely one for anyone that enjoys both Greek mythology and a retelling!

I went into this with very low expectations, I've had really mixed feelings about myth retellings that I've read before, some I loved, some not so much. This surprised me, I loved it and it makes me want to read more retellings.

This was so great, This was the perfect read for a lazy winter weekend.

It's no secret by now that I enjoy retellings, especially ones of myths and legends and those focusing on female characters, and with the current burst in Greek myth retellings, I'm certainly spoilt for choice! I had enjoyed Jennifer Saint's previous book, Ariadne, even if I had some issues with it so I was quite curious to see how she would approach a retelling of Elektra's story, one which I thought offered even more potential than Ariadne's.

I saw Aeschylus' original play performed in theatre all the way back when I was in high school and I read Colm Tóibín's House of Names a few years ago, so I knew there would hardly be any surprises in the plot, but I was looking forward to a more feminist take on the story, giving these women more of a voice. This time, the author chose to tell the story through three POVs, giving a voice to Cassandra, princess of Troy; Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon; and the titular Elektra, her daughter. If you're familiar with the original story, you'll know that all three women had the potential for being very complex characters as they slowly move through life to fulfil their tragic destinies. Unfortunately, this book didn't quite bring that out for me.

I did like the idea to have multiple POVs and particularly enjoyed following Cassandra's and Clytemnestra's perspectives. They took up most of the narrative, leaving Elektra's to actually be the least developed point of view, both from a narrative perspective and from a character development one. There was really very little insight into Elektra as a character, with her coming across mostly as a whiny, angry, spoiled child who acts exclusively on the basis of her hatred for her mother and the idolisation of her father. It felt as though she did very little beyond sulking and trying to find ways to hurt her mother.

Clytemnestra and Cassandra were slightly more developed and appeared more complex, which is probably what made their sections more enjoyable than Elektra's. Clytemnestra's grief, in particular, hit hard, as did Cassandra's frustration with her situation. In both cases, the ways in which their being women limited their options were nicely drawn out, but still did little to make this feel more than a more modern way to tell the exact same story. It didn't really feel like a feminist retelling, only like a retelling from a female character's point of view.

I did appreciate the way the author re-wrote Helen's character though! One thing that often annoys me in Trojan war retellings is the constant woman-on-woman hate when it comes to Helen, so I was happy to see that for once she was not described as a mean girl and there were multiple displays of solidarity between women.

I listened to the audiobook for part of this, alternating it with the e-arc, and it definitely improved the experience as all three narrators did an absolutely wonderful job of bringing the characters to life! Despite my issues with the characters in Elektra, I still really enjoyed the author's writing so I'll be curious to check out her future work to see if this was just a second-book problem.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ALC.

This was my first Jennifer Saint and I really enjoyed the story and the writing. The narrators also do a great job, I really enjoyed having a different one for each viewpoint, it helped me keep track of who was speaking which was something I definitely would have struggled with without that.