Penthesilea knew her life was different. Growing up on the lush island of the Amazons, she and her sister lived on the cusp of two worlds-the warlike one of men and the soft and mothering one of women. But Amazonian girls learn to fight, to defend their home, to battle their enemies. They are neither soft nor cold, neither fully female nor male in their traditions. However, the outside world breaks their peace, and Pen finds her sister drawn to the men outside in a way she herself cannot understand. When tragedy befalls the sisters, Pen and her warrior women journey to Troy, the site of the legendary war between friend and foe, where the Amazon queen must decide between tradition and a new sort of life that only she can define.

The Trojan War made famous Hector, Achilles, and Aeneas, but there are also Penthesilea and her Amazons and a host of legendary characters, their stories stripped of magic and deus ex machina, bared to the world as simple men and women, struggling against the often-deadly fates foretold in myth.