The Lost Sisterhood

The Lost Sisterhood

Anne Fortier

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from the publisher):  The Lost Sisterhood tells the story of Diana, a young and aspiring--but somewhat aimless--professor at Oxford. Her fascination with the history of the Amazons, the legendary warrior women of ancient Greece, is deeply connected with her own family's history; her grandmother in particular. When Diana is invited to consult on an archeological excavation, she quickly realizes that here, finally, may be the proof that the Amazons were real.

The Amazons' "true" story--and Diana's history--is threaded along with this modern day hunt. This historical back-story focuses on a group of women, and more specifically on two sisters, whose fight to survive takes us through ancient Athens and to Troy, where the novel reinvents our perspective on the famous Trojan War.

The Lost Sisterhood features another group of iconic, legendary characters, another grand adventure--you'll see in these pages that Fortier understands the kind of audience she has built with Juliet, but also she's delivering a fresh new story to keep that audience coming back for more.

Review:  First of all, I think the author of this book did an amazing job depicting the life of Myrina, head of the elusive Amazon tribe of women, and tying her story in to the modern day discoveries of the philologist Diana.  I could never write a book this interesting in a million years, and I have nothing but admiration for someone who can.

I wanted to love this book - I like adventure stories about treasure hunts, I like historical fiction, I like books about women, and I especially like historical fiction where women are the main characters in a treasure hunt.  And the story of Myrina's life in ancient Africa, Crete, Troy and Germany was novel and interesting.  But, there were lots of things about this book that drove me nuts.  First, it was WAY too long and convoluted.  Second, the romance between Diana and Nick was inexplicable - she thought he was a villain, then discovered he'd been lying to her about everything, then fell in love with him?  No way, she was too smart for that.  Third, there seemed to be some kind of weird political anti-government and anti-American agenda going on, and it had no place in this novel whatsoever.  And fourth, there were too many coincidences that were just too unbelievable.

I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if it had focused primarily on Myrina, skipped the romance entirely, and been a good deal shorter!

Rating: 3 stars