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Kendra Winchester is a Contributing Editor for Guide Riot the place she writes about audiobooks and incapacity literature. She can be the Founding father of Learn Appalachia, which celebrates Appalachian literature and writing. Beforehand, Kendra co-founded and served as Govt Director for Studying Girls, a podcast that gained a global following over its six-season run. In her off hours, you will discover her writing on her Substack, Winchester Ave, and posting photographs of her Corgis on Instagram and Twitter @kdwinchester.
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Each vacation break, I’m drawn to fantasy retellings. Final time in Learn This Guide, I shared how a lot I loved The Girls of Troy. Now let’s have a look at The Voyage Residence, which simply got here out on the finish of 2024.
The Voyage Residence by Pat Barker
Ritsa was as soon as a free girl of Troy. Now she’s the non-public enslaved particular person for Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, who’s herself enslaved as a concubine to King Agamemnon. Cassandra and Ritsa are placed on Agamemnon’s ship again to Mycenae, the place his spouse Clytemnestra waits to kill him. Earlier than Agamemnon left for the battle of Troy, he sacrificed his daughter to earn the favor of the gods to achieve a superb wind to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra has been ready for revenge ever since.
Cassandra as soon as refused to sleep with the god Apollo, who then cursed her with the power to precisely foretell the longer term, though nobody would imagine her. Cassandra predicts Agamemnon’s dying to whoever will hear, solely to have her warnings ignored. It appears to be like like each Agamemnon’s spouse and his concubine have the identical objectives. However Barker chooses to inform this story of Agamemnon’s downfall from the angle of Ritsa. Ritsa brings a down-to-earth perspective on the machinations of royalty. Whether or not she works for Cassandra or another person, she’s nonetheless enslaved.
The palace at Mycenae is haunted, the sounds of youngsters murdered inside its partitions echoing all through the drafty room. Handprints of the kids seem on the wall, and Cassandra can’t appear to cowl them up quick sufficient. Agamemnon’s household is at all times haunted by the violence they’ve enacted on one another.
With so many transferring components, The Voyage Residence isn’t as centered or centered because the earlier two entries into the collection—The Silence of the Ladies and The Girls of Troy—however it nonetheless possesses the emotional depth and intimacy of the earlier two novels. Ritsa provides readers perception into the lifetime of a “frequent” middle-aged girl of Troy whose life is destroyed by the struggle. Her story is all of the extra charming as her braveness and resilience shine by means of on each web page.