Ithaca (The Songs of Penelope, #1)

by Claire North

She will manipulate men to her whim, her might will be whispered of across the seas, and yet no one will know her name. She thinks that is the greatest power of all, and smiles to think of all the men who would give up their lives to be remembered by the poets, when she would rather live, live, live in wonder, and be forgotten immediately upon the end of a long and happy life.

Penelope, sixteen years old, left her father’s court behind to marry a man she had known for three weeks, and as she stood upon the prow of the ship that carried her to Ithaca, she closed her eyes and repeated: I will love, I will love, I will love. She will find her place and her contentment, and she will call it love.

it’s just not fashionable to have to work at being a hero. Heroism, if you believe the bards, is an innate quality gifted at birth, and the idea that prior to your manly adventures there is a fifteen-year training period replete with pulled muscles and using the baby bow just doesn’t fit the valiant milieu.

the greatest power we women can own is that we take in secret.”