Sorry kids, no feet.

Emily Hauser is rapidly becoming a must read for me. Once again, I find myself wondering why I finished this novel so quickly. Now I have to sit around and wait for the next one. 

For the Winner follows the same pattern the reader is introduced to in For the Most Beautiful. We get the tales of the mortals mixed with the tales of pesky immortal interference. Like For the Most Beautiful, some of my favorite scenes were those featuring the immortals looking down from their golden perches of Mount Olympus. However, unlike For the Most Beautiful, the reader was told Atalanta's side of the tale. This makes sense when you stop and think about it. The author's focus has been on the women of these myths. When it comes to the battle of Troy, there were several women on either side of the battle who had stories to tell. When it comes to the myth of Atalanta and the golden apples, there really was only one female side of the story. To me some of the enchantment I felt in the first novel was lost with the one narrator. Just some. I was still completely wrapped up in Atalanta's story. I still found myself cheering for her on every leg of her journey. 

To some, myths are over done. There are so many books out there that are modern re-tellings of one myth or another. Or books about gods who still live among us. Part of what makes these novels so wonderful is that they take place in an ancient world. A world Hauser manages to bring to life brilliantly. If you are someone who enjoys the kind of novels that put a different spin on old stories, I can't recommend these novels enough.