Xanthe and Marpessa are sisters living in Troy during a time of the war. It has been ten years since the war began after Paris swept Helen away from her husband in Greece to his home in Troy, causing her husband to wage a war to return her back to him.
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Marpessa was Helen's maidservant and is more like a daughter to her than anything else. She witnesses the love of Paris and Helen, but also Paris's philandering ways. She is able to see the gods as they walk among the humans. They speak to her and she can see their deeds.
Her sister, Xanthe, works for Paris's brother, Hector, and his wife. She helps with their infant child and works in the Blood Room in her spare time. The Blood Room is where the injured soldier are treated. On one of the occasions that she is there, Aphrodite, bored and annoyed with the lingering war, causes Xanthe to become desperately in love with one of the wounded, Alastor. Meanwhile, Xanthe's good male friend is hopelessly in love with her, while one of her female friends is in love with him. Each is filled with a hopeless despair because each loves another. Aphrodite intervenes yet again with another twist of cruelty. She causes Alastor to fall for Xanthe's sister, Marpessa, and she for him.
Soon Marpessa and Alastor begin a secret love affair as the politics of Troy and Greece rage on, the war becoming bloodier and bloodier. Hector is killed brutally and the city mourns until Paris avenges his brother's death, before being killed himself. But as the city rejoices, believing the Greeks to have gone and left a large horse statue as an offering to the Gods, the Greeks lay in wait inside the horse.
The review of this Book prepared by Angela
