Nobody's Princess

I picked up a galley of Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner at NY Comic Con and am quite pleased that I did. All too often advance reader copies disappoint, but this one did not. The story I heard from the rep was that this book had previously been published, but had gone nowhere and then Tamora Pierce got a hold of it and said they had to do something with it. (I think I may have gotten that mixed up a bit, but the point is that Tamora Pierce is a fan of this book.)

I love retellings, expansions for well-known stories, in part because I love to see different author's perspectives on the same tale. This book is what happened to Helen before she was the center of the mess that was the Trojan war. I'm a bit hesitant to give anything at all away, since the book won't be available til this summer.

I'll just say this was a page turner. Realistically strong Helen shines in this story and I can't wait for the sequel Nobody's Prize, due in 2008.