The siege of Troy has lasted almost ten years. Inside the walled city, food is scarce and death is common. From the heights of Mount Olympus, the Gods keep watch. But Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is bored with the endless dreary war, and so she turns her attention to two sisters: Marpessa, handmaid to Helen of Troy; and Xanthe, who tends the wounded soldiers in the Blood Room. The lives and loves of the girls interweave with those of Homer’s famous characters, and when Eros fits an arrow to his silver bow and lets it fly, neither sister will escape its power.

Geras brings the story of the Iliad to life for young readers through the eyes of the two sisters, recreating life in the ancient world and showing the Greeks and Trojans as living people trapped in a harsh and brutal war.

Troy won the ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. It was also a finalist for the Whitbread Award, won Publisher’s Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year and was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honour Book.