Book excerpt: When the Trojan prince Paris abducted Helen of Sparta, she left behind a nine-year-old daughter, Hermione. As the Trojan War ends, Helen of Sparta's nineteen-year-old daughter Hermione eagerly awaits her father Menelaus's return, but remains ambivalent toward her mother, even as her world is once again turned upside-down by Agamemnon's murder and other post-war treacheries. Can Hermione survive the trials that await, or will she, like her cousin Orestes, become another victim of the terrible curse that haunts her family?