Claire Heywood

Claire Heywood read Classical Civilisation at Warwick and took a master's there in ancient visual and material culture. Her novels hand Greek myth back to the women inside it. Daughters of Sparta, her first, gave the Trojan War to Helen and her sister Klytemnestra and sold well enough in America to reach the bestseller lists. The Shadow of Perseus, which Dutton brought out in 2023, tells the hero's story through his mother Danaë, through Medusa, and through Andromeda, and the man who emerges is not the one the received version describes. A third book, The Wandering Queen, published in 2026, follows Elissa of Tyre as she founds Carthage and becomes Dido. Heywood grew up in Coventry and works in Bristol.