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Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy


Being the daughter of “the most beautiful woman in the world” is not all goodness and light. Not only is Hermione constantly comparing herself and being compared to her mother Helen of Troy, but - unfortunately - she is also universally found wanting. Although Helen’s impulsivity and egocentricism is rarely acknowledged by the general public, Hermione has the dubious honor of witnessing it firsthand as the queen forsakes her marriage and flees Sparta with the charming Prince Paris, leaving behind her distraught daughter, a trail of destruction, and chaos. This retelling of the myth of Hermione – Princess of Sparta, daughter of the “Face that Launched a Thousand Ships” and King Menelaus – is largely comprised of the Trojan War (from a backstage perspective) and its aftermath as it pertains to the protagonist. Hermione’s tale of woe is recounted in a plain-spoken, gritty, non-romanticized first-person point of view. Although it has a bittersweet ending, those in search of being regaled with soft-focus gilded accounts of war, heroism, bravery, and romance will find themselves sorely disenchanted as this novel tends to be more closely aligned with the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales than their Disney depictions.
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