Stealing Athena

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex was told through the perspective of two women, one living in ancient Greece as a mistress to Pericles and one living in the 1700s as an ambassador's wife in the same area. The chapters alternated between the two time periods. The stories never seemed to flow together. They were too separate without enough in common to make the book work. I found the story set in ancient Greece to be more interesting than the later story, but both were very drawn out and slow. The end was particularly frustrating, because the two women's stories did not have enough resolution. I think this book had a lot of potential, but it did not live up and fizzled out at the end. I recommend it to anyone interested in ancient Greek history and art because those people may get more out of the descriptions of the art and the time period than I did. Overall, I enjoyed parts of the book and gave it 3.5 stars.