Welcome, Judith Starkston, Author of Achilles's Wife

Judith Starkston

 Today, I (Donis) am proud to host Judith Starkston, author of Hand of Fire and Priestess of Ishana. Her fabulous new novel, Achilles's Wife, has just become available for purchase as of March 16.  Judy writes historical fantasy and mythic retellings set in the Bronze Age of the Greeks and Hittites. Her six novels bring women to the fore—whether Deidamia or Briseis from the Trojan War cycle of myths or a remarkable Hittite queen whom history forgot, even though she ruled over one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. Check out Judy's website at www.JudithStarkston.com.

Achilles’s Wife book cover image

The case of the Missing Mycenaean Palace: Setting Historical Fiction in Myth

My latest novel, Achilles’s Wife, arises from Greek myth and reinterprets the story of Achilles’s life before the Trojan War—when his divine mother conceals him on a remote Greek island to keep him out of the brewing Trojan War. But as a feminist novel focusing on female leadership and motherhood, its main character is a young woman, Deidamia (Mia), a princess on the Greek island of Skyros, daughter of King Lycomedes. 

Choosing a Royal Setting

Princesses and kings live in palaces or castles, of course, and a royal dwelling represents power and leadership, so it was important to me to “build” a palace that gave my overarching theme of governance—good and bad—a vivid physical rendering in the readers’ imaginations. 

Being the historian I am, I also wanted to be historically accurate for the Mycenaean, Late Bronze Age period when this mythic king and his daughter would have lived, if they were ever “real,” which they certainly could have been.

A Missing Palace

So, I found myself writing a novel set on the Greek island of Skyros because that is where, according to tradition, the myth I’d chosen took place. I soon encountered a problem as I researched this setting: the missing Mycenaean palace.

Archaeology from a Previous Era

There’s not a great deal published in scholarly research about the archaeology of Skyros. Moreover, the gorgeous archaeological site that has been excavated on the island, called Palamari, dates to the Early Bronze Age. Its final habitation is about 1700 BCE. I was aiming for somewhere more or less around 1250 BCE within the Late Bronze Age to be a credible palace for Lycomedes. But this is a mythic retelling, not precise historical fiction, so I used my knowledge of Mycenaean architecture and borrowed some of the vivid setting details from Palamari. Voila! A fine palace of Lycomedes.

Or so I thought. Then, deep into writing this manuscript, my husband and I decided we wanted to travel. Our last international trip had been pre-Covid. In about a month, I planned a trip to Skyros and Santorini. In the process, I tracked down a Greek archaeologist, Christina Romanou, who fairly recently had published about the Palamari site. I was looking for help identifying local people familiar with the dig. I have found such connections hugely helpful in my past research travels.

Locating the Missing Mycenaean Palace

Ms. Romanou was very helpful. She gave me names of people who’d worked on the dig and could be located at the archaeology museum or guarding the site. But more significantly for my novel in progress and my inner accurate historian, she told me about the likely location of Lycomedes’s palace. It turned out there was evidence of where a Mycenaean palace had once stood, whether the mythical king lived there or not.

Palace atop rocky mountain, medieval ruins visible (photo: author’s own)

Not Much Left

The Palamari site I’d previously focused on for the palace lies on the northerneastern portion of the island. Long before my characters would have arrived on the scene, the residents of this city abandoned it (possibly when a volcano-caused tsunami consumed a huge chunk of the settlement). My Mia and Achilles could explore the dramatic ruins of horseshoe-shaped bastions and stone walls. The site is so atmospheric that I incorporated this haunted city as a key location in my plot, even when I had to give up on it as the site of the Mycenaean royal seat. But Palamari did not solve my missing palace problem.

Also on the eastern coast, but toward the middle of the island, rises a steep, rocky mountain. It’s currently topped with Classical, Medieval, and Ottoman ruins and a still-functioning monastery. I’d never heard a word about a Mycenaean palace there. 

However, Ms. Romanou gave me the essential information. Soundings taken on the acropolis area of that mountain revealed Mycenaean ruins. The many layers of later use have wiped away any significant trace of this palace, but at least we know where it was. I spent hours climbing (600 steps or so from the base of the mountain, through village to acropolis) and crawling around the acropolis area where the soundings place a palace. I was ready to site my imaginary palace and citadel.

My Fictional Palace Becomes Real

Instead of a broad bluff over the sea, my novel portrays a rocky mountaintop location. Since my characters, early in the novel, do some illicit escaping from said palace, this took some major rewriting. There are, after all, many steps and dangerous heights to scale, although there is a lovely river valley cutting in midway from the facing mountain range, so Mia did not need to go all the way down to the beach.

 

But my rewriting developed in other unanticipated ways. I love to write from concrete details. I had been suffering from a sense of amorphousness of place. I don’t write as well without the inspiration of real locations: the smells, the sights, the textures, and the geographic realities. Finding the true location and spending a lot of time there in person ended up meaning even more to me than success in achieving historical accuracy. Myth retellings need to create a lifelike immersion. I felt this story becoming fully convincing once I held that rocky mountaintop on Skyros in my heart. 

Palamari site, “haunted” city with horseshoe bastion (photo: author’s own

The Novel, Achilles’s Wife

Here is a brief book description of Achilles’s Wife:

In an ancient kingdom, a princess takes inspiration from a visiting young woman to challenge her father’s views and reach for leadership—and then discovers her muse is a man. 

The goddess mother of Greek mythology’s most famous warrior, Achilles, will do anything to prevent her son’s fated early death. In a desperate move, she hides Achilles, against his will, on an island—disguised in a girl’s body.

Tormented by inner discord, the miscast “girl” befriends Mia, the eldest daughter of the island’s king, launching a transformation of Mia’s own. Armed with a new vision she believes comes from a girl, Mia contends with family secrets, a controlling father, her destiny to rule, and the wrath of a goddess. 

When fate reveals Achilles’s identity, a divine mother’s fury drives Mia and Achilles into marriage. Mia must navigate her love for a man with a divided heart and a dangerous measure of immortality. Balancing governance and motherhood, Mia will face an unbearable choice.

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Achilles' Wife is available on Amazon, Bookshop, or at Judith's website,  https://www.judithstarkston.com/