Amalia Carosella, in her desire to give Helen her own voice (although seriously, she's been given at least two others that I found just image searching the cover - The Memoirs of Helen of Troy and the apparently less sympathetic Memoirs of a Bitch) presents the story of her abduction by Theseus of Athens as a grand and tragic romance, in which Helen flees her abusive and resentful mother and a planned alliance-marriage to childhood friend-turned-abusive rapist dick Menelaus, but basically finds her life being continually fucked up by the anger of the gods.
Helen of Sparta is an okay book with a couple of specific flaws. Firstly, it's just... really quite rapey. As decent as Theseus is in the novel, it's hard to see how Helen can be intimate with anyone given that she's basically been dreaming about being raped in the ashes of Troy by just about every other man she knows and isn't related to since puberty. I know Greek myth is brutal, but damn. Also, turning the abduction of the prepubescent Helen into the elopement of a young woman, there is sex, and then a child, and because she has no place in the later narrative the daughter is exposed on the hillside at the will of the gods*.
Again, it's not a poor representation of the heroic age of Greek myth, but I'm not okay with little girls being sacrificed**.
Overall, however, the book manages to balance adherence to the broad structure of the mythological tale and the romantic narrative it wants to convey. It ends on a downer which hints at a part two, and in all honesty, I'd read part two if and when.
Which is a lot better than the last couple of Kindle First offerings.
* My own theory is that Athena pulled some switcheroony which will be revealed in a later book, possibly in Egypt, but it still made for upsetting reading.
** Which is not to say I am okay with little boys being sacrificed, but I can work with it as an earnestly horrible part of a narrative in a way I can't with girls, simply because I have a daughter and not a son.
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