A Spartan's Sorrow (The Grecian Women Trilogy, #2)

by Hannah M. Lynn

“It is no animal she requires,” he said, with a voice that could have been a thousand years old. “It is a child. Your fairest daughter, Iphigenia.”

the most tainted gift there was. Being beautiful didn’t stop a man’s hands from striking you. Nor did it stop his eyes—and the rest of him—wandering when he grew tired of the same person in his bed at night.

But he is your father first, which means it is his job to safeguard you, too. That is his duty to all of you children. He will be there with you, in Troy, and will never let anything happen to you. You have my word.”

Never believe yourself to be worth less than him, or any man for that matter, because thinking it is the start of it becoming true.”

I think that happens when you are abandoned as a child, you will always wonder what was wrong with you.”

“You do not have to talk to learn,” he replied. “In fact, often it is better if you do not. Far better to listen.”

“Tell me then, how should I have behaved? I had a role to play. Surely you see that? All we ever have are the roles they force us to play.”

We have been fighting the same battle, Clytemnestra, against gods and kings and people with power and privilege. They are so terrified of losing their control over us, that they crush us at the slightest sign of our own independence or happiness.

“Some fathers do deserve to die.

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.”

Our choices are shaped by our experiences, and our experiences by those who surround us from our birth.

“In our darkest moments, we should recognise not just what has been lost, but who continues to stand beside us.