Helen of Troy.  Legend has it that she was the most beautiful woman in all of ancient  Greece and that because of her beauty, the prince of Troy, Paris, fell in love with her and kidnapped her, thus causing the destruction of his city and entire civilization.  Of course, this is all a myth, but archeological evidence found in the past decade has discovered a lost city that bears remarkable similarities to Troy and the war that ended it.  Was Helen a real person?  There is evidence that suggests not only did the city exist, but almost certainly, so did the woman whose beauty brought about its downfall.  And why not?  After all, legends are often based on real historic fact.

Thus we enter the world of Helen of Troy, before she was called such, when she was just Helen of Sparta, a princess, the daughter of a king, and living in a world where fantastic stories are told about ancient gods, monsters, and living heroes.  But behind all these now known legends lies a glimmer of truth: Heracles’s Hydra was actually a swamp of large snakes and the Golden Fleece, sought by Jason, only one of many gold dusted pelts in the ancient kingdom of Colchis.  Such is the world Esther Friesner has created for her first two novels of the Princesses of Myth series, the first two of which are entitled: Nobody’s Princess and Nobody’s Prize.