Odette's Vow

Odettes Vow By Gwyneth Lesley 

Im a little unsure of the page count, but the book is avaible now on amazon!

Hi guys! I got to try my hand at being an arc reader! I loved it! If anyone ever wants me to read anything as an arc reader, that would be awesome! 

Man this book made me really hate Odysseus. Its a great book, although I have some criticisms. I like the concept, but I honestly went into the book with expectation of this being the story of a women wronged, determined to sabotage Odysseus’s journey home. Instead its an almost enemies to lovers romance, and the main character is rarely determined to keep her vow, too busy being in love and all that. I mean she even attempts to revoke the vow at one point. The title feels…off. The book feels more like a well written romance than a story of sabotage and anger. I fully admit she did do things to sabotage him, but the pacing of the book was also different than I expected. Even from the introduction, I understood that yes, sure, sleeping with Odette wouldnt have counted in that time as cheating on Penelope, but then you add the feelings to it and despite that concept,it still feels icky. I like Odette as a character, her motivations are clear, she seems rather smart, and I like the way it manages to make both Odette and Odysseus seem clever and keep credit for ideas. I would have been a smidge upset if the whole books simply discredited Odysseus of any accomplishment. Im by no way saying the man was a saint, for the record. I did find it a bit flimsy that Odette can read and knows multiple languages, despite not being a highborn lady or well educated. I understand that her husband had taught her, but I struggle to understand how that coexists with the mentality that “Oddette is a slave and it therefore wouldnt have been cheating”.  A man teaching a woman to read and everything he knew, especially when the both of them were working on a farm at the time, would have been both extremely progressive and odd, considering he had no way to know that knowledge would come in handy.  I really liked the book, I read all of it in nearly one sitting. I seem critical because its on a topic Im passionate about. I liked the ending. The ending set up the sequel and ended in an interesting place, considering its base is the Illiad and the Odyssey, but Im assuming creative liberties needed to be taken for where the books was headed and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the next one if nothing more than to see what Penelope eventually has to say about all this.