Horses of Fire by A.D. Rhine is a retelling of the Trojan War from the perspectives of Helen, Andromache (wife of Hector,) and Rhea (a young enslaved woman raised in a horse breeder family.) In this version, Helen has been taken from her former home and husband by Paris against her will. As the years progress, Paris becomes increasingly abusive to Helen by holding the safety of her daughter by her first husband over her head. What’s more, Helen is a trained healer whose skills could be valuable during Troy’s war, but she is ostracized by those in the palace because they blame her for the start of the war. Helen is perhaps ostracized the most by Andromache, who Helen only seeks to help and gain a sister in. Cassandra (Hecotr’s sister) is also in this retelling but does not have a POV chapter until the end. Cassandra is a type of prophet in this book, and is described as having multiple personalities. While the main characters each have interactions with her, Cassandra is for the most part locked away for being “mad.”
Andromache is Hector’s wife, but she has also been reforged in Horses of Fire as an Amazon warrior. Due to her fighting training, Andromache wishes to participate more actively in defending Troy, but her role as wife with only “one job”, to produce an heir, is the marker by which all of Troy seems to measure her. Andromache chafes against this role and expectation, while at the same time having genuine love and respect for Hector–and in turn, it seems he also holds the same love and respect for her.
Rhea comes from a family of horse breeders, her father having formerly been a soldier under Hector and a type of horse master for him as well. Rhea understands horse breeding, temperaments, and training like no one else due to her upbringing. As such, Hector recognizes her valuable abilities at a time when strong horses are so sought after for use in battle, that he employs her in his stables, quite against social conventions. Although Rhea is naive about much of the world, she is intelligent and sensitive and in time, draws Andromache and Hector closer as they see her as a type of surrogate daughter. She also plays a part in healing the rift between Andromache and Helen.
Overall I found Horses of Fire beautifully written, but at times it did seem to drag (especially around the 60-70% mark.) Also around this mark a plethora of characters are introduced who are probably in the original story, but I did not know who they were and could not keep them all straight. All of these new characters coming in near end honestly confused me and left me feeling lost so near to the climax.
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