There Will Be Blood

If your idea of a "fierce female" is Beyonce, it's time to check out some Greek tragedy. This 2,500-year-old literary genre features a pantheon of fearless women like Clytemnestra, Electra and Medea whose stories never cease to stun. A good place to start your exploration of Greek tragedy would be Colm Toibin's 2017 novel House of Names. It tells the story of Clytemnestra, a woman who takes revenge on her husband after he sacrifices their daughter Iphigenia to the gods so that he may win a war. When Clytemnestra succeeds in killing him, their other daughter Electra decides to kill her mother to avenge her father. Toibin does an amazing job of telling these women's stories, though the novel falters when it turns to telling the story of Electra's brother, Orestes.

House of Names by Colm Toibin is available in good bookstores.