The best in historico-mythic fiction

History is a record written by the victors, which is why women's voices were rarely recorded in the ancient past, even though the first ever novel was written by a woman. In Pat Barker's adept and deft hands, this continues the Trojan war and all that happened around it, but through the voices of the women who are sidelined in the original tales, and brought thrillingly and viscerally to life by Barker's careful and penetrating craft.

Agamemnon returns in triumph after laying sack to Troy. Agamemnon sweats in nightmare, hagridden by the daughter he sacrificed. Witness to both Agamemnons is Cassandra, Apollo-blessed and cursed, and the king's unwilling wife, unable to tell a falsehood but lying with her body. And with her is her slave, Trojan healer Ritsa, cursing Agamemnon with every fibre of her being.

As these three travel back to Mycenae and the open arms of Clytemnestra, Barker weaves a tale of prophecy, survival and retribution, taking the touchpoints of the Iliad and bringing it to life, with all of the humanity and inhumanity that the horrors of war and murder imply. The past is parent of the present, and past deeds will always demand their price.

Superlative: five stars.

I really enjoyed Pat Barker’s first two Troy books, The Silence of the Girls and The Trojan Women, so I was keen to find out where she might take us next. Thanks to those, along with Natalie Haynes’s A Thousand Ships, I found it easy to imagine the camp on the shore below Troy as the Greeks pack up and prepare to set sail with the spoils of war. This time the story is narrated in part by Ritsa, in a past life the wife of a healer in Lyrnessus, then given as battle prize to medic Machaon. Now she finds herself slave to the former priestess Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecate, cursed by Apollo to see the future but never believed. As if that weren’t enough for one lifetime, Cassandra is now the concubine of Agamemnon, being taken back with him to Mycenae. The anticipation is delicious: we know he’s not long for this world, as Cassandra tells anyone who will listen (nobody), but they do not. The gods in this telling are distant, mentioned but perhaps not always believed in, but there is an element of the supernatural: handprints, footprints, voices in the great palace of Mycenae.
Agamemnon is plagued by visions of his daughter Iphigenia, whom he sacrificed to allow the fleet to set sail to Troy all those years ago. His wife Clytemnestra has had a long time to work out what she will do on his return. Here, she and his cousin Aegisthus are not lovers; she suffers his presence as someone useful in helping her to get rid of Agamemnon but that’s all. Her son Orestes is heir, after all.
I’ve been trying to pin down what it is I love about Pat Barker’s writing. It’s unfussy, strong on observed detail. A Booker Prize winner could hardly be called under-rated but I do wonder whether we appreciate and cherish Barker and her work as much as we should, alongside other greats. The first encounter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon on his return from Troy is a masterclass in point scoring and weary acceptance, the bitterness and pragmatism of a long marriage spoiled. As this part of the story closes, I wonder if she will continue with these characters, following Orestes to his fate too. I do hope so.
Thanks to Penguin for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

The Voyage Home by Pat Barker is the amazing conclusion to her Troy trilogy, a series that reimagines the events of Homer’s Iliad from a female perspective. This final installment continues the story of the captured Trojan women as they journey back to Mycenae with the victorious Greeks.

The novel centers on Ritsa, a fictional slave, and her mistress Cassandra, the Trojan priestess and concubine of King Agamemnon.
Ritsa’s character highlights the themes of survival and adaptation. Ritsa’s ability to endure and find moments of humanity in her dire circumstances makes her a poignant and relatable figure. Barker uses Ritsa to explore the broader impacts of war and displacement on women, giving voice to those who are often silenced in traditional narratives.
Barker’s portrayal of Cassandra is particularly compelling. As a seer plagued by visions of impending doom, Cassandra’s character is complex and deeply human. Her relationship with Ritsa, marked by compassion and shared suffering, adds depth to the story.
Overall, The Voyage Home is a powerful, satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion to Barker’s trilogy, offering a fresh and poignant perspective on a classic tale.
Thank you to @penguinbooks and @netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this wonderful book

I didn't realise that this was the follow-up to Pat Barker's The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls and it worked brilliantly as a standalone book. I want to read the other 2 books now.

Likeable middle aged Ritsa, healer, bereaved mother, friend and now slave travels to Agamemnon's Greece from her Trojan home as Cassandra's maid. Charismatic Agamemnon is physically and emotionally repulsive. The palace is a sinister, disorientating place marked by horrors from the past and Clytemnestra is a complex and anguished queen. Ritsa's account is very real and human and she describes the physicality of life with a funny, intelligent and brutal eye. Ancient Greece is described with such an immediacy that I felt immersed in the smells, fears, dangers and relationships in the book. I loved this fresh engaging retelling of Agamemnon and Cassandra's death and loved having Clytemnestra and Ritsa as the narrators.

The title of this final book in Pat Barker’s trilogy is somewhat poignant as the voyage home is not a reference to the Trojan women on which a large part of this book centres but rather the victorious Greeks as they sail back towards Mycenae having pillaged, burned and conquered Troy. The Greeks, led by Agamemnon, have murdered the Trojan men and boys, whilst the women and girls are forced aboard the vessels that will take them forever away from their homeland towards a life of servitude and drudgery.
The book is structured into differing perspectives with Ritsa, a Trojan servant to Cassandra and Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon and more importantly the mother of the sacrificed Iphigenia who is awaiting the return of the fleet after many years. The switch in perspectives throughout the book work to build the anticipation and suspense as most readers will be familiar with how this story goes, anticipating the brutal and arguably just murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra to avenge his sacrificial killing of their daughter. Before we get there though, Barker offers us some rich character exploration and aims to give a voice to the women that have existed at the sidelines of these stories or have had their stories told by male authors in a way that negates their agency and psychological exploration.
Ritsa, although created solely by the author, is a fascinating character whose complex relationship with Cassandra allows for their own individual identities and pathways to be explored. Cassandra, daughter of defeated Trojan King Priam and now concubine to Agamemnon, is condemned by Apollo to have the gift of prophecy but never to be believed is adamantly on her drive towards death as she heads towards Mycenae. In contrast and perhaps more pragmatically, Ritsa attempts to salvage a life for herself after the brutal and traumatising uprooting of her own.
There is a brooding and unsettling feeling as you progress through the book. The setting of Mycenae and the grave of Iphigenia loom large both literally and figuratively for all the characters involved. Furthermore, the presence of the Furies who we encounter within the story add a supernatural element that further explore female rage and trauma.
A fascinating end to a trilogy that has worked to foreground both the female voice and experience amidst a world that is filled with male violence and terror.

I’ve read several books retelling the story of Cassandra, Agamemnon & the revenge taken upon them by his wife Clytemnestra. What makes this different from others is that it is told from the viewpoint of Ritsa, a middle aged slave taken by the Greeks in the war on Troy. Ritsa is relatable, a real voice of reason in the insanity of the Greek myths, and offers another viewpoint to that of the previous books’ main teller, Briseis.

Evocative & compelling, a wonderful final book in the series- though I wish it wasn’t the end.

Bookshelves are now replete with retellings of Greek myths, none more so than the story told in the Orestia – of the death of Agamemnon at the hands of his wife Clymnestra. Just recently, this tale has been retold in Colm Tobin’s excellent House of Names, and in Jennifer Saint’s Elektra. Pat Barker comes to it as the third volume of her series based on the Trojan wars which started with The Silence of the Girls and continues with The Women of Troy. These books, as is clear from their titles, have focussed on the women in these tales, mainly silent characters or prizes of war.
In The Voyage Home, Barker begins where the previous book left off – the Troy is destroyed and the Greek army is packing up to leave. Agamemnon has take Cassandra, the daughter of his enemy Priam and prophetess, as his wife. Cassandra has already foretold that both she and Agamemnon will be killed but her curse is that no one believes her. Waiting for Agamemnon at home is Clymnestra, who has not only been ruling in his ten year absence but still blames him for killing their daughter Iphegenia in order to appease the gods. In the middle of all of this is Cassandra’s servant Ritsa, another one of the spoils of war. Ritsa a woman with knowledge and gifts of healing, forced into a subservient role and while compassionate, also looking for a better life.
Barker once again delivers a startlingly insightful and rich tale within the confines of a story that has been retold thousands of times. In this case she does so by focussing on women who had some agency which is taken from them and how the consequences of clawing that agency back. Clymnestra ruled in Agamemnon’s absence but is cast back into the role of spurned wife on his return. Cassandra, once a priestess of Apollo her finds herself in the role of concubine. In Cassandra, Barker returns to one of the key themes of this series, the impact of war on women:
Agamemnon rode with Cassandra at his side… she was King Priam’s daughter, once a princess, no Agamemnon’s concubine, obliged to lie in his bed and bear his children. What better symbol could there be of Troy’s defeat in war. In war, men carve messages on women’s bodies, messages intended to be read by other men.
There is more of this story to tell – the cycle of violence that next leads to the revenge of Orestes and Electra on their mother. And Barker may well return to these stories. But this feels like a natural stopping place for her exploration of the Trojan war - from the tragedy and sacrifice of a young girl which started it, to the use and abuse of female slaves during the war, through to the consequence of those actions. In a field replete with retellings of these stories, Barker’s approach to the material – revenrential but not slavish and using the narrative to draw out universal themes - has always stood out and The Voyage Home is no exception.

I enjoyed the other two books in the series and loved this just as much. Pat Barker is so good at bringing these ancient stories to life, with characters that appear so real, it was like being there. Brilliant writing as ever.

Yet again another wonderful novel by Pat Barker. the Voyage Home is the third book in a series based around the tales of Troy as experienced by the women involved. Barker has done remarkable research and so brings to life the ancient cities, their people and royalty. Truly wonderful.

When I realised this book would be about Clytemnestra’s long-awaited revenge on Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter for a fair wind to Troy, I wondered if Pat Barker would be able to bring anything new to a story that has had a number of recent retellings (e.g., by Colm Tóibín, Natalie Haynes, Susan Wilson, Costanza Casati). I should have known better - of course she breathed new life into an age-old story, in part because the predominant POV is that of Ritsa, a middle-aged, middle-class Trojan midwife. Enslaved after the sack of Troy and assigned to Agamemnon’s retinue, Ritsa has a fresh and immediately relatable perspective on a society changed irreparably by the brutality of the Trojan War and its aftermath, and on well-known characters such as Cassandra, Clytemnestra and Electra.

The story takes place over the course of just a few days and even though anyone familiar with the original myth already knows broadly what the main plot beats are, the pacing and tension are superb and kept me eagerly turning pages. Barker’s writing is so evocative - the menace and claustrophobia of the haunted palace, the smells and sounds below deck on the wooden ship, the chaos of the Mycenaean harbour all come through so clearly to the reader, but without lengthy descriptive passages that slow down the story. I also love the author’s use of contemporary language, which is measured and beautifully judged: it’s just enough to make all the characters feel alive and relevant, without being jarring and taking the reader out of the story (of course, YMMV).

After the brilliance of The Silence of the Girls, I was a bit underwhelmed by The Women of Troy, but this final instalment is a satisfying return to form. The Voyage Home is a strong finish to a superb trilogy that gives voice to the women of the Iliad.

The Voyage Home is the final book in Barker's Trojan War trilogy, and I went into it wondering if there was anything new she could offer after having read a number of takes on Clytemnestra and Cassandra in recent years - from Natalie Haynes to Colm Toibin, their stories have been told and retold as part of a uptick in interest in the Greek myths by writers and readers alike.

I shouldn't have doubted, though, because of course - like The Silence of the Girls (which superficially tread similar ground to The Song of Achilles) and The Women of Troy (with much in common with Haynes' A Thousand Ships) - Barker takes these familiar tales and does something enormously interesting and entertaining with them, such as I felt like I was reading about Clytemnestra for the first time.

Highly recommended.

<i>The Voyage Home</i> appears to bring Pat Barker's trilogy to an end, which retells the stories of the Trojan War from the perspective of its female characters. Here, Cassandra and her slave Ritsa sail with Agamemnon on his voyage home, where Cassandra prophesies that she and Agamemnon are both fated to die. Waiting for Agamemnon is his wife Clytemnestra, and the book focuses on these three women, all occupying very different positions in society, but all constrained in one way or another, whether by class, gender, or fate...

I had forgotten how good Barker's writing is until I started reading <i>The Voyage Home</i>, and was instantly entranced by her words and the world they create. As with the first two books in the series, this is an extremely readable book, despite its difficult subject matter, which held my full attention until the very end. I was impressed by how easily this one seems to follow on from the books that precede in, in ways that don't require the reader to remember everything that comes before, but it can also be read as a standalone. I also continue to be impressed by how Barker offers new perspectives on old myths, and I particularly loved that we get the full range of class perspectives in this book, as Barker somehow manages to make Ritsa, Cassandra, and Clytemnestra all sympathetic. While my knowledge of what was coming (in terms of the big plot beats) added to my enjoyment, you don't have to know the myths behind <i>The Voyage Home</i> to get something out of it.

I don't usually enjoy mythical retellings, or historical fiction, but Pat Barker's writing is irresistible. I've loved all the books in this series, and <i>The Voyage Home</i> might just be my favourite so far. I already can't wait to reread it.

I was really looking forward to this, the last in the Women of Troy trilogy and it didn’t disappoint. Another strong retelling from a female perspective. I had expected the book to finish with Clytemnestra’s end at the hand of Orestes and can’t decide if I’m disappointed or relieved that it didn’t! Can’t wait to see what’s next from this author!

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

As a child and teenager I was enthralled by Greek and Roman history and mythology. As an adult I have become fascinated by the feminist retellings of many of these tales. Pat Barker's trilogy is a wonderful example of how to give voice to the women of Homer's Iliad. In The Voyage Home, the third of the series, Agamemnon is returning home to Mycenae having destroyed Troy and its people. He has taken with him as concubine, Cassandra, prophetess and daughter of Priam and her maid Ritsa. Meanwhile in Mycenae his wife Clytemnestra has been ruling during his ten year absence and is waiting to get her revenge for his sacrificing of their daughter Iphigenia. It is through the eyes, ears, thoughts, actions and voices of these women that we read the final part of Barker's retelling of the Iliad. The author does not flinch from recounting the horrors of their lives and the ghosts of horrors past. I really appreciated the contemporary language used for the dialogue and the insertion of snapshots of known nursery rhymes to highlights the countless ways in which women and children were used as weapons. This lifted the story from being part of ancient mythology to being a highly relevant and realistic account of the ways in which war continues to weaponise the weak. I missed knowing what happened to Briseis and wonder if there will be a follow up to the trilogy. The Voyage Home could be read on its own but I would encourage readers to read all three books in order to appreciate the full story and the talent that Pat Barker has brought to this epic retelling. Thank you to the publisher via Net Galley for providing e with an ARC of this book.

I was so looking forward to reading this book, so I'm grateful to the publishers for allowing me to read this early.
I absolutely loved the first book, full of originality yet intrinsically intertwined with fables, which somehow created a magical book. The second book disappointed me, as it felt like it was trying to justify it's existence as a worthy sequel and always falling short.
However, this final book hits all the high notes as it sing's it's farewell. Full of melancholy and loss, this book is an achievement to be proud of for the author. I absolutely loved how the story evolved and developed as the story comes to an end. Full of poise and dexterity, the story is made to be savored and appreciated as the wonderful characters tell their tale, which an ending is just sublime.
A superb trilogy and a fantastic story to finish on.

Following the journey of Cassandra (prophetess to Apollo from Troy) and Ritsa (her maid) from Troy To Mycenae.

This books is easy to read and found it hard to put down once we reached the second half of the book! I have read a fair few versions of this story and still enjoyed this one, it still had plenty of it's own flair and details to make it interesting.

Thank you Penguin General UK for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
#TheVoyageHome #NetGalley

The Voyage Home is a modern retelling of two important Trojan women who often do not get much of a voice; Cassandra and Clytemnestra. Much of the book is narrated in the first person by Ritsa, Cassandra's body woman with chapters interspersed from Clytemnestra. Pat Barker manages to convey Cassandra as a petulant child whilst also showing just how lonely and afraid she must have been. Clytemnestra is portrayed as the vengeful, grieving wife and mother who has been waiting for the person responsible for killing her daughter, her own husband, to return home for ten years.

Barker manages to capture the magic of Greek mythology but in a way that is truly accessible for the modern reader. Not many people want to read the likes of Ovid, Homer, and Virgil but Barker is able to take these mythic stories from epic writers, put a feminist spin on them, and offer new perspectives on these stories. She gives a voice to women who were largely silenced whilst being written about by male authors.

I am a Classical Studies student and as such I love any modern retelling, especially those that give marginalised characters a voice and Pat Barker has definitely delivered once again. This is a wonderful retelling and I would highly recommend Pat Barker to anyone who wishes to dip their toe into the classical world.

Thank you to Penguin Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

There are so many parts of Greek Mythology that we know, or we think we know - but the glorious part of retellings and adaptations (especially ones as incredible as this!) is the ability to continue adding to that pantheon.
The end of Cassandra's story is retold, this time mostly from the perspective of her enslaved maid/confidante Ritsa, who serves as an incredible reminder of the consequences of war on the 'common people'. Agamemnon is still just as awful and boorish, Clytemnestra is still a formidable force that is underestimated at people's peril and Cassandra is still a young woman that was stolen from her homeland and forced into a fatal situation.

I loved reading this story as much as I did Barker's other retellings that don't shy away from the brutality of women's experiences of war. These are not perfect characters to pity - nothing's that simple. But they are encapsulations of human experience; survival, love, grief...all of those remarkable things that unite us all.

I did like this and I am a big fan of Pat Barker but something was missing for me here, I didn't find Cassandra engaging enough and I think I prefer Greek myth with more Greek gods in it. Obviously a very personal thing and I'd still recommend.

The Trojan war is over and Agamemnon is sailing home to Greece where his wife Clytemnestra awaits him. With him are his new wife Cassandra, and her slave Ritsa. The story is told through the eyes of the three women. The war, as always, was brutal and we are never allowed to forget the brutality shown to women and especially to children, whether it's the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia, the brutal murder of his brother's children or the horrors bestowed on the children of Troy. All of them are present throughout the book. The story telling as always is brilliant. We are with the women in their suffering. This is a brilliant end to a fantastic trilogy. I've been waiting for this since finishing The Women of Troy and it hasn't disappointed. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC.