The Voyage Home

The queen of literary historical fiction, Barker is an unflinching guide for a trip across ancient Greece

National Geographic

Thank goodness Pat Barker writes sequences, as one book is never enough. The tortuous grief of mothers and daughters is the story of every war, and her retelling of the aftermath of the Trojan War grips our heart and haunts our dreams

Sarah Brown

In her thrilling retelling of the stories of Cassandra and Clytemnestra, Barker conjures up a world stained by the grief of mothers and daughters. Agamemnon’s palace is the stuff of nightmares, a world of suspicion and fear, plagued by the ghosts of innocents

Paula Hawkins

The Voyage Home brings forgotten female characters into sharp psychological focus. It is astonishingly fresh and modern, bristling with anger, and breezily quick to read. Pat Barker is one of the finest novelists working today

Alice Winn

Viscerally satisfying, chilling and triumphant . . . No one does it quite like [Pat Barker] does

Marie Claire

Brilliant, masterful, strikingly accomplished . . . few come close to matching the sharp perspicacity and profound humanity of Pat Barker . . . this bloody tale has reverberated down the ages. With her characteristic blend of brusque wisdom and piercing compassion, Barker remakes it for our times

Guardian

Stirring and colourful . . . Barker has a genius for world-building. Ritsa is our viewpoint into an ancient civilisation brought carefully to life

Financial Times

A remarkable series of novels . . . Pat Barker’s Trojan War books are a visceral experience, made all the more affecting for being told from the perspective of the women involved rather than the warriors and gods we’re used to

Irish Independent

A tale for our time, wonderfully written . . . The Voyage Home lays out the contingency of power: how fickle it is, how readily it ditches its host and moves elsewhere. It lays out both the banality of evil, and the grace that appears in the lives of everyday people

The Conversation

A gritty Greek Game of Thrones . . . Agamemnon’s fateful return home reads like a blockbuster in the colourful third instalment of Barker’s women-centred Trojan wars series

Observer

A provocative, inspiring novel

The Spectator

Rich and electrifying . . . The Voyage Home’s storytelling is focused, propulsive and firmly contemporary, plotting a gripping route through Homer’s source material to expose the ripple effects of male violence and destruction

i

A novelist matchless in her imaginative and informed response to war

Times Literary Supplement

Told from a female, indeed feminist perspective, Barker’s novel offers a vibrant counterpoint to Homer’s original story

Financial Times, 'Best Books of 2024'

Extremely gory and surprisingly funny, with plenty of gruff wit . . . Few living British novelists write as well about the collateral damage of war as Pat Barker. The Voyage Home is the third novel in her brilliantly subversive and ever-relevant reimagining of The Iliad . . . and it shows how a Bronze Age story can hold up a mirror to the inequities of our modern world

The Times, 'Best Novels of 2024'