HELEN OF TROY

Adhering to but reinterpreting the ancient Trojan cycle, this pseudo-autobiography portrays the ill-starred daughter of Leda and Zeus as proud, sensitive, and altogether Brontë-ish, a tender waif ensnared in a double-woven net of human and divine politics. Perhaps the publisher cast the aptly named Eyre on the basis of her looks, for she, too, has a face that could launch a thousand ships. But as unseen narrator, she is too mannered and too limited to hold a listener's interest for the 30-plus hours of this sentimental weeper. Though her voice has an attractive and youthful timbre, her cadences are repetitive, and her tone sounds unctuous and precious, more appropriate for a conventional--and brief--paperback romance. Y.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 06/ JAN 07]