The Moon Riders is an excellently written story about a young woman warrior, Myrina and her involvement in the historic Trojan Battle. I thought the plot of the book was exciting as the tragic events from Homer's Iliad slowly unraveled. Cassandra, Paris, Helen and other characters from the Iliad were seamlessly interwoven with the fictional characters of the novel. Myrina and her friends and family felt real in both their behaviors and emotions.

After reading this book I did a little research on Cassandra -- a character from the Iliad I knew almost nothing about. After reading various stories about her, I felt that author Theresa Tomlinson did an excellent job of merging a mythic two-dimensional character into a believable three-dimensional person.

I also appreciated the Cast of Characters listed at the back of the book. Some of them were obviously fiction, some were obviously from the Iliad, but some were from other Greek writings. For example I had never heard of Penthisilea from the heroic poem by Quintus of Smyrna. I'm glad Tomlinson used other ancient Greek sources for her characters. After reading the reading the author's note -- it was very apparent how much she enjoyed the research and writing of this story.

A compelling novel, the Moon Riders will make readers feel like they are getting a glimpse inside the world of the ancient Greeks.

The next book in this two-part series is the Voyage of the Snake Lady.

I loved this book. It caught my eye in a WHSmiths in the Young Adults section with it's beautiful cover. It's about a group of woman called Moon Riders who are the Amazon warrior woman.

The main character Myrina the Snake Lady is a very powerful female lead. She manages to cope with a lot of pain, trauma and loss from a very young age. The story reads well and I was quickly caught up in the tale. It had a very bittersweet ending at the seige of Troy, but it was good to know that at least her and Cassandra were ok. ( )