Did I mention this is part of a series? Because I didn’t realize that for some reason until I reached the end. I might know where the story is going, but I still want the next book immediately. Alas, The House of Odysseus is at sea until May of 2023. If I have one critique for this book I think that it's a tad on the long side? Hera, is prone to rambling a bit it seems, and though I enjoyed her voice more than not, I do think it could have been trimmed in places. The setting and description are all wonderfully told and easy to envision. It appears as though a second book is due to out in May and you can be sure I'll give it a go. It is a fiercely feminist book, but it’s not a preachy book. It tells a story that is full of betrayal and scheming, of friendships forged and friendships broken, of goddess and queens, love and death, and of fate and free will. On the island of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never returned. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace - but this is shattered with the arrival of Orestes, King of Mycenae. Getting home is easy, all things considered. Keeping one's own son, self, and people alive - now that's going to take a much wilier person than Odysseus.

How do you hide an army?...You hide them in precisely the same way you hide your success as a merchant, your skills with agriculture, your wisdom at politics and your innate cunning wit. You hide them as women."* I who have nothing to lose that the poets have not already taken from me, only I will tell you the truth. I, who part the veil of time, will tell those stories that only the women tell.”But while the men: the Council, the suitors and their fathers, her son, all regard the women as unimportant, of no account, Penelope is no mental slouch. She and her women have been quietly busy behind the scenes: all those grieving widows and mothers, those fatherless daughters, the women who have been farming and hunting and crafting and trading in the absence of their men will be, it turns out, not only prepared to, but with a bit of training, also capable of, defending Ithaca.

I realise that what makes him king amongst the gods is less the thunderbolt he wields and simply that he believes himself set upon high."*When the others are dead and gone, when Clytemnestra’s body is burnt and Penelope has breathed her last, only Elektra will remain, the last woman to carry my fire. But not yet–not yet." First off, I liked Aphrodite as the narrator and her comments regarding some of the men, like Menelaus. I disliked Menelaus this entire book and loved how Penelope was able to handle herself throughout Menelaus taking over the palace and everything else that was happening. Her character really shown, and I love how it was repeated that the women of Ithaca ran the island while all the men were gone at war, so why shouldn't they still be badass after the war?

I don't want to say too much about the plot, because seeing what North chooses to focus on was surprising for me, but the problem of the suitors looms large, and is explored in a way that feels completely unique to me. And having Hera, frustrated and overlooked and put-upon Hera, be the way into this story ends up feeling extremely inspired. Definitely recommend, and I'm so glad there are going to be two more books in this series. If you liked the political maneuvering in the Game of Thrones series; if you chafe at the way that Greek mythology couldn’t pass even a modified a Bechdel test; if the inner lives of women are interesting to you; if you love a “good for her” story with an denoument that feels absolutely earned and yet somehow still in some ways surprising; I recommend this book whole heartedly. 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' throne—and if he can seize it, no one will be safe from his violent whims.I know very little about killing, That is the men’s business. But it is the women who come to dress and wail at the corpses when the killing is done, no?" No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne—not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit, and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive. The worst part of finishing House of Odysseus is waiting until June 18, 2024, to find out how North wraps up this trilogy. There are a lot of questions to be answered: Will Odysseus really kill them all? Will Telemachus be there when it happens? But most importantly, who is North recruiting to do the narration? My money is on Athena, but she seems a little too no-nonsense to tell an interesting story; she is more of a how-to kind of narrator. I would kind of like to see Artemis, she is the kind of girl to put an arrow through your eye just for looking at her the wrong way or any way at all for that matter. She would tell a fun story. If you look for an engaging Penelope's retelling, a story that you may know of her and her son Telemachus, her love and passion for Odysseus, do this is NOT your book.