Spartan Slave, Spartan Queen: A Tale of Four Women in Sparta Paperback – October 12, 2007

I love everything Dr. Schrader writes. In this book the background is the post-Lycurgan period of battles between Sparta and Tegea. She has a particularly good Historical Notes section at the end, where she explains why she made assumptions about women's roles and Spartan life that structure the drama in the novel. It also made me go spend time at her website (given at the back of the book) to read her "Sparta Reconsidered" notes. I'm sure she's a controversial figure with historians, but I also think she's worth a read. And the book is like her others in having wonderful characters and imaginative plot turns.