The Lost Sisterhood

I guest posted about this novel over on Becca "Lostinbooks" blog for a Women's Lit Event. Be sure to check it out here and read my review below.

Title: The Lost Sisterhood

Author: Anne Fortier

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group / Ballantine 

Publication Date: March 11, 2014

ISBN: 9780345536228

Number of Pages: 608

Description:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Juliet comes a mesmerizing novel about a young scholar who risks her reputation—and her life—on a thrilling journey to prove that the legendary warrior women known as the Amazons actually existed.

Oxford lecturer Diana Morgan is an expert on Greek mythology. Her obsession with the Amazons started in childhood when her eccentric grandmother claimed to be one herself—before vanishing without a trace. Diana’s colleagues shake their heads at her Amazon fixation. But then a mysterious, well-financed foundation makes Diana an offer she cannot refuse.

Traveling to North Africa, Diana teams up with Nick Barran, an enigmatic Middle Eastern guide, and begins deciphering an unusual inscription on the wall of a recently unearthed temple. 

There she discovers the name of the first Amazon queen, Myrina, who crossed the Mediterranean in a heroic attempt to liberate her kidnapped sisters from Greek pirates, only to become embroiled in the most famous conflict of the ancient world—the Trojan War. Taking their cue from the inscription, Diana and Nick set out to find the fabled treasure that Myrina and her Amazon sisters salvaged from the embattled city of Troy so long ago. Diana doesn’t know the nature of the treasure, but she does know that someone is shadowing her, and that Nick has a sinister agenda of his own. With danger lurking at every turn, and unsure of whom to trust, Diana finds herself on a daring and dangerous quest for truth that will forever change her world.

Sweeping from England to North Africa to Greece and the ruins of ancient Troy, and navigating between present and past, The Lost Sisterhood is a breathtaking, passionate adventure of two women on parallel journeys, separated by time, who must fight to keep the lives and legacy of the Amazons from being lost forever.

My Review:

I love a story with strong female characters and Anne Fortier gives us not one, but two strong female characters in her new release, "The Lost Sisterhood." Fortier weaves a dual storyline between modern day scholar, Diana Morgan, and ancient warrior, Myrina. 

Myrina and her sister, Lilli, travel from their plague-ridden village to the Temple of the Moon Goddess. After proving themselves worthy, they are allowed to join the priestesses. 

Diana's fascination with Amazons begins when her grandmother claims to be an Amazon and fills a notebook with what Diana's father dismisses as an imaginary language created by a medicated and psychologically unbalanced woman. Diana's interest grows and eventually becomes well known among her fellow Oxford academics. When a stranger approaches her claiming to have found evidence of the Amazons' existence, she is skeptical. Excavations often turn up women who were allowed to fight alongside men in battles, but The City of Women, Themiscyra, has never been found and is considered a myth. Only when Diana is shown an inscription that looks like the writings in her grandmother's notebook does she embark on her academic quest. Arriving at a drilling site in Africa, armed with her grandmother's notebook, Diana translates the name "Myrina" and her world-wide journey begins. 

Both women encounter love and danger throughout modern day England, the Greek Islands, Africa and Turkey and readers are transported through time and across continents. The subject of a female scholar on an academic quest is similar to Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" mixed with Indiana Jones-style treasure hunts, and Greek mythology retellings comparable to Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent" and Margaret Atwood's "The Penelopiad." "The Lost Sisterhood" contained everything I want in a novel and will definitely be on my "Best Books of 2014" list. 

** I received this book in exchange for an honest review **