Excerpt from Elektra by Jennifer Saint, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I suppose…" she breathed out as a girl handed her an ivory-handled mirror, the back of which was ornately carved with a tiny figure of Aphrodite emerging from her great shell. She flicked her eyes over her reflection, tossed back her hair, and adjusted the gold circlet that rested atop her curls. I heard a faint sigh go up from the clustered girls who awaited her judgment on their unnecessary efforts. "I suppose," she continued as she bestowed a smile upon them, "that he was simply so very grateful."

I paused, the words I had sought evaporating on the air.

Helen noticed my silence, perhaps read some reproval in it, for she straightened her shoulders and fixed me directly in her gaze. "You know that our mother was singled out by Zeus," she said. "A mortal woman beautiful enough to catch his eye from the peak of Mount Olympus. If our father were not of a quiet and uncomplaining disposition … who knows how he may have felt? If he were more like Agamemnon than Menelaus, for example."

I stiffened a little. What did that mean?

"A man like that doesn't look like he would take any affront without protest," she continued. "Would he see the honor in his wife being chosen, or would he see it differently? I don't know what my destiny might be, but I know that I was not born to do nothing. I don't know what the Fates have planned for me, but it seemed"—she searched for the right word—"prudent to make my choice carefully."

I thought of Menelaus, the adoration in his eyes when he looked at Helen. I wondered if she was right, if he'd be able to see things the way our father had done. If winning the contest in our halls really would be victory enough, whatever might happen later.

Excerpted from Elektra by Jennifer Saint. Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Saint. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.