Today I’m pleased to present a guest reviewer, Z.S.Adani, and her review of the novel The Priestess and the Slave.  I also encourage you to visit Jenny Blackford’s site and Hadley Rille Books.

The Priestess and the Slave by Jenny Blackford, published by Hadley Rille Books.

Set in fifth century BC, Greece, Jenny Blackford’s The Priestess and the Slave is a historical novella. It is told in alternating chapters describing the life of Thrasulla, one of Apollo’s Pythias at Delphi, and of Harmonia, a slave living in Athens sixty years later during the devastating plague.

Thrasulla is dismayed when the Spartan King Kleomenes succeeds in bribing Perialla, the senior Priestess at Delphi. For a Pythia avarice is disgrace, and Thrasulla the wise and strong, often reflects upon her past in an effort to save her fallen sister. While Thrasulla loses respect for Perialla, her faith in Apollo remains steadfast. Despite their stations as the Delphi Oracles, the Priestesses are all too human; they gossip like other people, they scheme, and some of them even triumph as they journey through life.

In Athens during the plague, we meet Harmonia, a young slave, who is regarded as a family member and whose love is reciprocated by those she cares for. The reader is immediately plunged into a scene in which Harmonia nurses young Aristogeiton. As the plague claims its victims from this one family, Harmonia’s kindness is revealed through superb characterization. She is an ordinary young woman, yet her capacity to cope with grief and tragedy makes her extraordinary. I found Harmonia’s tale moving and her plight easy to identify with.

While the two women’s lives are very different, their stories resonate and echo in their display of courage and wisdom. The nuances of political play, the power of prophesy, tragedy, and the daily lives of people are intricately woven together into a fascinating, historical piece. Readers that don’t care for textbook history would find this novella informative in a vivid fictional setting, and those that like history would cherish it for its accurate details. Highly recommended.

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