There were no flowers down there when she was little.

She wonders how they manage to grow in such a place of death. There are only a few brave flowers, growing between the cracks, their petals white against the darkness of the ravine. She searches for cracked skulls, broken bones, corpses eaten by wild dogs and pecked by vultures, but nothing. I am truly in awe that this is a debut and I simply cannot wait to see what Costanza does next.Clytemnestra looks down at the steep ravine but can see no trace of dead bodies. I could genuinely talk about this book and this strong, complicated, passionate, fierce queen forever. This is the story Clytemnestra deserves to have told about her. This is the book I have been waiting for since I first learnt about Clytemnestra almost 2 years ago. Through Costanza’s exploration, the queen is reinstated as an actual human being, one who is grieving, has suffered immensely, craves justice and refuses to become a pawn in a game ruled by gods and men. Plot lines such as Iphegenia and Agamemnon’s murders were portrayed differently to what I have read before and this interpretation so successfully sets the record straight on the the tyrannical nature so often assigned to Clytemnestra.

Through Clytemnestra, Costanza confronts the men of Greek mythology with more force and candour than I have ever experienced with this genre and it is genuinely striking she does not shy away from their cruelty and in no way downplays their crimes, thus empowering the Greek women so often pushed aside to be able to take their rightful place at the forefront of their own stories. I was genuinely relieved to discover that she experienced true love before being shackled to Agamemnon and it was so compelling to see her rage towards him fester over the years, morphing into a burning hatred before reaching breaking point. Being able to see Clytemnestra’s growth from such a young age was extremely interesting and I learnt so much I never knew about my favourite Greek woman. This may honestly be the best, most fascinating and most personal portrayal of a Greek mythological figure I have read so far. Her reputation far precedes the truth behind her story and Costanza sets out to reveal how she became such a notorious queen. Following our titular character, this debut explores Clytemnestra from childhood, all the way up to the Trojan war.

Clytemnestra costanza