Hades' Daughter - (Troy Game) by Sara Douglass (Paperback)

About the Book

A compelling four-part fantasy series kicks off with this first installment that brings the Aegean world to life in a saga of love, revenge, and madness.

Book Synopsis

Ancient Greece: A place where the gods hold mortal life cheap, mere playthings to amuse, delight, and abuse at their will.

But those puny mortals are not wholly devoid of power and at the core of their fabulous city-states lies the Labyrinth, where they can shape the powers of the heavens to their own design. When Theseus entered the Labyrinth and came away with the prize of freedom and his beloved Adrianne, Mistress of the Labyrinth, his future seemed assured... Until he abandoned her for the unforgivable sin of bearing him only a daughter, and the world seemed to change. From that day forward, all the Labyrinths in the ancient world started to decay. It slowly became clear that power was fading from the city-states.

Was it the natural decline that comes to all cultures or was it because the power of the Labyrinth had been corrupted by a woman spurned?

A hundred years pass--Troy has fallen and the Trojans are a scattered and humbled people. The warrior Brutus is of the line of kings and gods. He wears the golden kingship bands of Troy proudly--but they are his only mementos of a former glory, for he is a man without a country and is left little else but pride and a memory of the latent power that he could wield if but given a chance. When he receives a god-sent vision of a distant shore where he can rebuild the ancient kingdom, he will move heaven and earth to reach his destiny.

Ever eastward he is drawn, to a lovely and mystical green land that offers him a haven--and a dream of power and conquest. Nothing will deter him... not even the entreaties of the young princess whom he took as his wife and bedded against her will. First her hatred--and now her love--torment and bind him. She is the only one who realizes the danger he is stepping into, and she will do anything to save him... and his son, whom she carries in her womb.

For in the mists of Albion there lies a woman of power--a woman who has used her siren call to cloud Brutus's mind and has her own reasons for luring the warrior to these lush shores....
She is the long-descended granddaughter of Adrianne, and she has in her heart a hatred that has been passed down for generations. Her plans for Brutus will enact a revenge that could destroy the gods themselves.

s20If Brutus makes the journey successfully, it will be the next step in the Game of the Labyrinth and might start a complicated contest of wills that could span centuries....

Review Quotes

"Sara Douglass has the breadth of vision necessary to create sweeping epics and the storyteller's gift that makes readers love her." --Locus

"Ms. Douglass recreates the Aegean world and a Pre-Celtic England in a sweeping epic that grabs your attention at the first page." --Romantic Times Book Club (4 stars)

"A soap opera for the ancient world..." --Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Sara Douglass (1957-2011) was Australia's leading fantasy author and one of its top novelists, earning two Aurealis Awards. Her beloved series include Wayfarer Redemption (including the award winning Enchanter and Starman), The Troy Game (beginning with Hades' Daughter) and Crucible (with award winner The Wounded Hawk). Her standalone novels include Beyond the Hanging Wall and Threshold.