From School Library Journal Grade 8-Up This is historical fiction at its best. Adele Geras (Harcout, 2001) tells the tale of the Trojan War from the viewpoint of several Trojans, mostly young and mostly female, while giving both the Olympic mythologic and Greek prophetic traditions significant roles in her story's plot and its symbolic imagery. Young sisters Xanthe and Marpessa hold center stage here as their adopted city suffers the siege of the Greeks who fight for the return of Helen, Marpessa's mistress. Xanthe's mistress is wife to Helen's brother-in-law, Hector, father of the young boy with whose care Xanthe is herself charged. Eros, the trickster god of love, meddles in the lives of both sisters, as well as in that of the lame stable boy who has been their friend from early childhood. Miriam Margolyes provides the many characters here with exquisitely specific voices, from the girlish tones of the young sisters, to the lisping baby talk of Hector's son, to the deep rough tones of Achilles, the whines of three old crones who provide comic relief at several turns, and the quivering voice of the elderly singer in King Priam's court. Pathos is intertwined with humor, and sensuous details of the love lives of both young peasants and slightly older royals find refrain in horrific scenes of battle and the kind of impassioned torture of prisoners that grows from years of ethnic conflict. Neither Geras nor Margolyes let their characters off lightly; in fact, listeners will find the Troy brought to doomed life in the here and now with this reading, whether the story of the war and the Greeks' deceitful gift is anticipated or previously unknown.Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up.