Book Review: A Spartan’s Sorrow by Hannah Lynn

About the Book:

Title: A Spartan’s Sorrow

Author: Hannah Lynn

Series: The Grecian Woman Trilogy #2

Page Length: 336

Publication Date: April 2, 2024

Publisher: Sourcebook Landmark

Synopsis: From an award winning author comes a story of feminist revenge perfect for readers of Madeleine Miller and Natalie Haynes. All murders must be avenged. While the rest of Greece mourns for the war that has taken their husbands away, Clytemnestra fears the day it will bring Agamemnon back. When her husband willingly sacrifices their eldest daughter to appease the gods, Clytemnestra vows to do whatever it takes to protect her remaining children. But history turns strong women into monsters, and in saving her family she risks losing them altogether and becoming the most hated woman in Greece…

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My Review:

I love mythology retellings, and A Spartan’s Sorrow is a fascinating look at a woman who is often vilified or voiceless in mythology. The story follows Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and her son Orestes. Clytemnestra is not the villain she is so often portrayed as being. Instead, we see a woman who has been hurt and betrayed and is desperate to find safety and peace for herself and her children.

Hannah Lynn is a fabulous storyteller who created a layered and sympathetic character in Clytemnestra. We also see the brutality of her husband and others who have power over her life. Though I tended to enjoy the chapters from Clytemnestra’s perspective more than her son’s, I found the entire story engrossing.

A story of love, loss, betrayal, and vengeance, A Spartan’s Sorrow is a great addition to The Grecian Women Trilogy, and I look forward to reading the final book in the series. Special thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a copy of the book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 

Favorite Lines: 

It was not to a god that mighty Apollo came, for a solution to this problem, just as it would not have been to his father that Orestes would have gone with his troubles as a child. The goddesses, the mothers, they are the ones we turn to. And yet it is a god’s word that we have to obey, one that tells us that a man must be avenged, but not a woman.

About the Author:

Hannah Lynn is a multi award-winning novelist. Publishing her first book, Amendments – a dark, dystopian speculative fiction novel, in 2015, she has since gone on to write The Afterlife of Walter Augustus – a contemporary fiction novel with a supernatural twist – which won the 2018 Kindle Storyteller Award and the delightfully funny and poignant Peas and Carrots series.

While she freely moves between genres, her novels are recognisable for their character driven stories and wonderfully vivid description.

She is currently working on a YA Vampire series and a reimaging of a classic Greek myth.

Born in 1984, Hannah grew up in the Cotswolds, UK. After graduating from university, she spent ten years as a teacher of physics, first in the UK and then around Asia. It was during this time, inspired by the imaginations of the young people she taught, she began writing short stories for children, and later adult fiction Now as a teacher, writer, wife and mother, she is currently living in the Austrian Alps.