Troy has fallen, and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an eternal war, including the Trojan women themselves. They await a fair wind to carry them across the Aegean Sea. The wind does not come, for the gods are displeased. King Priam's body lies defiled and unburied, and so the victors remain suspended, camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed. The union that held them together begins to unravel, old rifts resurface, and new suspicions and rivalries fester. Unnoticed by her captors, Briseis, once queen of Troy, once handmaid of Achilles, now the property of his companion Alcimus, begins to realize these developments, forming alliances where she can—with the wild old Hecuba, wife of Priam, and with the disgraced seer Calchas—all the while cunningly pursuing her own revenge. “A deft continuation of her ferociously feminist immersion in Homer’s Iliad… In a novel teeming with names taken from myth, Briseis stands tall as a heroine: fearless, intelligent, and loyal… Parker’s finale is a masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly “Parker’s prose has a simple power more effective than fancy wordsmithing; “Making these bygone events seem immediate...more of the work of one of contemporary literature's most profoundly thoughtful and enchanting writers is always celebrated.” - The Washington Post “...immersive and ingeniously woven: teeming with smoke from fires and wind-blown sand that keeps the Greek army nailed to the shore.” - NPR