House of Odysseus by Claire North

House of Odysseus by Claire North

Men go to war, gods scheme, and the choices of a queen will change the course of the world, in this powerful sequel to Ithaca from multi-award-winning author Claire North.

On the isle of Ithaca, Queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband, Odysseus, sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace--a peace that is shattered by the return of Orestes, king of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra.



Orestes's hands are stained with his mother's blood. Not so long ago, the son of Agamemnon took Queen Clytemnestra's life on Ithaca's sands. Now, racked with guilt, he is slowly losing his mind.



Penelope knows destruction will follow in his wake as surely as the Furies circle him. His uncle, Menelaus, the battle-hungry king of Sparta, longs for Orestes's throne--and if he can seize it, no one will be safe from his violent whims.



Trapped between two mad kings, Penelope fights to keep war from Ithaca's shores. Her only allies are Elektra and the distant Helen of Troy, Menelaus's enigmatic wife. And watching over them all is the goddess Aphrodite, who has plans of her own.



Each woman has a secret. And their secrets will shape the world.

Catherine Webb, a Carnegie Medal-nominated author whose first book was written when she was fourteen years old, goes by the pen name Claire North. She went on to create numerous further novels in other genres before releasing The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, her first major effort as Claire North, in 2014. It was a critical and commercial triumph, earning plaudits and an Audie nomination, as well as a spot on the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year list. Touch, her following book, was again included in the Washington Post's Best Books of the Year list in 2015. Catherine is a theatre lighting designer who enjoys big cities, urban magic, Thai cuisine, and graffiti detecting. She is based in London.