New This Week: The Lost Sisterhood by Anne Fortier

Though it felt like a long wait since Juliet, Anne Fortier’s 2010 debut, The Lost Sisterhood (Ballantine) seems absolutely worth it. Once again we have stunning historical detail, though this time with a strong thread of fantasy: or so many of us have been led to believe.

As the book opens, we meet bright young thing Diana Morgan, a philologist at Oxford University with a personal fixation on the Amazons that her colleagues find ridiculous. Morgan’s fixation has a strong foundation, though: an eccentric grandmother who thought that she herself was descended from the Amazons.

Diana’s beliefs seem vindicated when a mysterious organization invites her to consult on an excavation that will prove the Amazons existed.

In another thread, we meet those elusive and legendary Amazons as they begin their trek in North Africa and set out, accompanied by great danger and exciting adventure, on a mission of revenge.

One of the things that made this literary journey so enjoyable is the fact that there just hasn't been much fiction about the Amazons, though myths abound. Fortier leads us through largely uncharted territory as we follow her tribe of warrior women from North Africa on an indirect journey to their ultimate home.

The Lost Sisterhood is a perfectly fleshed out embodiment of a bit of lost history it would be wonderful to be able to believe. ◊