Oracles of Delphi Volume 1: A Novel of Suspense

by Marie Savage

All Althaia wants on her trip to Delphi is to fulfill her father's last wish and enjoy time away from her tiresome new husband. Finding the body of a young woman on the altar of Dionysos in the theater of the Sacred Precinct on her first day in town is not in her plans. Neither is getting involved in the search for the killer, falling for the son of a famous priestess, or getting pulled into the ancient struggle for control of the two most powerful oracles in the world. But that's exactly what happens when Theron, Althaia's tutor and a man with a reputation for finding the truth, is asked to investigate. When a priest hints that Theron himself may be involved, Althaia is certain the old man is crazy-until Nikomachos, son of the famous priestess of Dodona, arrives with an urgent message. As Theron's past, greedy priests, paranoid priestesses, visions, prophecies, and stolen treasures complicate the investigation, Althaia finds herself falling for Nikomachos whose dangerous secrets may hold the key to the young woman's death.When another body is found and Althaia discovers Nikomachos is being blackmailed, she devises a plan to coerce the killer to reveal himself and, in the process, forces Nikomachos to confront his own past. As the plan unfolds, she comes to realize that love often comes at a high price and that the true meaning of family is more than a blood bond.

• ISBN10: 0989207935
• ISBN13: 9780989207935
• Publish Date: 15 October 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Blank Slate Communications
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 324
• Language: English

Reviews

[elysium]

3,5 stars

I have to confess I hadn’t heard about the Oracle of Delphi before this and I realized how little I actually know about ancient Greece.

Althaia is a privileged young woman from Athens but thanks to her lenient and loving father she’s had more rights than most women. She has knowledge to perform an autopias on a dead body, which becomes handy when a dead woman is found.

I liked Althaia, Theron and her two slaves. Praxis was almost like a brother to her even though he was a slave and it was nice to see their close relationship. Althaia was very likeable character: strong, compassionate and quite outspoken for that time. We get another perspective of her from the point of view of Nepthys, her personal slave.
Little by little we learn more about their past and how they became to each other’s lives.

I loved reading about the Oracles of Delphi because there the women could have power and be quite independent since women didn’t have much rights in Ancient Greece. And many of the women were born peasants and they could still be powerful.