Penelope's Daughter — Laurel Corona

From the award-winning author of The Four Seasons comes a sumptuous novel that retells The Odyssey from the point of view of Xanthe -- the daughter Odysseus didn't know existed...

Xanthe is the brave, beautiful daughter of Odysseus and Penelope -- and potential heir to the throne of Ithaca. But the royal court is in upheaval. A battle is being waged inside the palace, and upstairs, Xanthe is barricaded in her chambers -- her only way to avoid the rapacious suitors who will do anything to become king, even if it means murdering her brother and abducting her as a bride.

With her father gone for twenty years and the threat of defeat closer than ever, Xanthe turns to her loom to weave the adventures of her life, from her upbringing among servants and slaves, to the years spent in hiding with her mother's cousin, Helen of Troy -- from whom Xanthe learned the pleasures of friendship and the ecstasy of goddess worship -- to the passion of her sexual awakening in the arms of the man she loves.

And when a man dressed as a beggar appears at the palace, home after twenty years, Xanthe will stand before her loom, wondering who will be the one to decide her future: a suitor she loathes, a brother she cannot respect, or a father who doesn't know who she is...