Achilles’s Wife

Thetis, the sea goddess who tried to make her son Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the River Styx, is now faced with trying to shield him from being killed in yet another war. She hides him on a tiny island disguised as a girl, but in Judith Starkston’s latest novel, Thetis transforms him into a physiological girl. As Phyria, he befriends the King’s daughter, Mia, but when he’s discovered, Thetis transforms him back. He and Mia marry and have a son before he goes, as promised, to war. Sadly, the son is a miserable human being and Mia must make some difficult decisions in this well-researched, entertaining twist on a little-known character in Greek mythology.

Judith Starkston writes historical fantasy and mythic retellings set in the Bronze Age of the Greeks and Hittites. Her six novels bring women to the fore—whether Deidamia or Briseis from the Trojan War cycle of myths or a remarkable Hittite queen whom history forgot, even though she ruled over one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. Judith traces her obsession with the ancient world and its stories—both historical and mythological –to her undergraduate days as a classics major at UC Santa Cruz and her graduate work at Cornell, which included a focus on Greek epic and tragedy. It’s true, as a college freshman, she decided to take ancient Greek on a whim, but once drawn in, she has never escaped.

She taught high school English, Latin, and humanities for about twenty years until she decided she could not face grading another stack of dubiously argued essays. She blames her shift from historical fiction into historical fantasy on the nature of the ancient world, where gods and goddesses, rites the modern world would call magic, sorcerous curses, and hybrid mythical creatures are all part of the “normal” fabric of life. So, to portray the ancient Greeks or Hittites accurately, “fantasy” will necessarily be part of the story. These elements also make her novels more fun to write and read.

Within the ancient world, the period Judith finds most engaging is the Late Bronze Age, about 1200 BCE, both in the Mycenaean world revealed in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and in the Hittite world unveiled through the recent translation of excavated cuneiform tablets. Archaeology is another major source of knowledge about these two related cultures that flourished around the same time in Greece, the Aegean islands, and Anatolia. Researching these worlds requires specialized study and, fortunately, significant travel. From reading archaeological site reports and other archaeological analyses, examining museum collections, and visiting key excavation sites where her characters most likely lived, Judith researches and builds historically accurate, immersive worlds depicting both the intangibles like decisions and beliefs and the everyday items like food, clothes, and buildings. Learn more at JudithStarkston.com.

G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com).