Animals, especially cute ones, can steal the show, but they also bring light to our hearts–and I think we all need that. So here’s a story about Achilles’s horses for my Achilles’s Wife cover reveal post.
Nearing Extinction
When my husband and I traveled to the Greek island of Skyros to research my upcoming novel, Achilles’s Wife, we visited Mourios Farm where they raise the Skyros horses, a small pony-sized breed that once was the horse of the ancient Mycenaean warriors. The breed is now in danger of going extinct and lives only on this one island. I thought of these diminutive equines recently when I noticed an article about them in the Greek Reporter, The Miniature Horse of Greece’s Skyros: A Race Against Time.
A Pair of Ponies for Achilles?
We came home with a reproduction of a Mycenaean ceramic figurine of one of these cute horses. It’s a little hard to imagine the great legendary warriors using such pony-sized pairs to pull their chariots, but at least they didn’t ride horseback into battle like a Medieval knight, armor and all. So perhaps it’s not quite such an implausible tale.
However, this popular horse story sometimes veers into the far-fetched. As generally told, albeit with a pinch of skepticism, the ancestors of Skyros’s horses were none other than Achilles’s pair. Xanthos and Balios, Achilles’s horses, were immortal and, like Mr. Ed, able to talk. I certainly never imagined them petite-sized.
Missing Out on Achilles’s Horses
In any case, the actual horses on Skyros didn’t reach the island until the 5th century BCE, long after the Trojan War and the age of heroes, if such ever truly existed. So I’m afraid the fine specimens we saw happily cavorting in a corral did not get to appear in my novel Achilles’s Wife, even though Achilles himself spends part of his early adulthood there. He didn’t yet have the famous divine horses.
The Cover Reveal of Achilles’s Wife
Achilles’s Wife has a beautiful cover that shows its core as a novel of Greek myth retelling. I also commissioned a new cover for Hand of Fire. I wanted them to have a similar series appearance, although they are both stand-alones.
If you were eagerly awaiting another novel about Briseis, I must apologize. That’s not what I wrote this time. The main character in Achilles’s Wife is Deidamia, a princess of Skyros. By the way, if you are interested in reading an advance copy in exchange for posting an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads by early March, contact me to arrange it.
Here’s the cover:
Here’s the back cover copy for a taste of the novel:
In an ancient kingdom, a princess takes inspiration from a visiting young woman to challenge her father’s views and reach for leadership—and then discovers her muse is a man.
The goddess mother of Greek mythology’s most famous warrior, Achilles, will do anything to prevent her son’s fated early death. In a desperate move, she hides Achilles, against his will, on an island—disguised in a girl’s body.
Tormented by inner discord, the miscast “girl” befriends Mia, the eldest daughter of the island’s king, launching a transformation of Mia’s own. Armed with a new vision she believes comes from a girl, Mia contends with family secrets, a controlling father, her destiny to rule, and the wrath of a goddess.
When fate reveals Achilles’s identity, a divine mother’s fury drives Mia and Achilles into marriage. Mia must navigate her love for a man with a divided heart and a dangerous measure of immortality. Balancing governance and motherhood, Mia will face an unbearable choice.