Behind the timeless tale of Troy you know is the captivating story you never heard. Most stories of Troy—both contemporary and dating back to Homer’s The Iliad—focus on a narrow window of the war on its aftermath.

But why was this the story that was passed down among generations over hundreds of years before Homer ever wrote it down? What of the battle itself, and its key players? This was the question writers Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinson, who comprise A. D. Rhine always wondered. Their spellbinding and bold response is HORSES OF FIRE (on-sale July 25, 2023, Trade Paperback
Original), a sweeping epic where Troy is not a playground of gods and goddesses but a battleground in which Troy’s strong, yet misunderstood women take center stage during the collision between empires.
 

In HORSES OF FIRE, Andromache is cast as the doting wife of Prince Hector, yet her Amazon warrior name means “battler of men.” The only one with the cunning to outwit the invading Greeks, she must gather a band of outcasts and become the military commander she was born to be before the life she
and Hector have built is reduced to ashes. Rhea is a young war refugee and a horse whisperer who finally earns a place and sense of belonging in
Hector’s stables. To save her new home, she must become an unlikely spy and face down a forbidden love that will test all her loyalties. Helen is blamed by all for starting the Trojan War, but no one knows her real story. To escape her tormentor and foil a plot to undermine Hector, Helen must risk everything by revealing her true face to the one who despises her most.  Over the course of HORSES OF FIRE, these three very different women become threads spinning on a single loom. Can they reweave the tapestry of fate?

Cowles and Stinson have been friends since they met on a US Army base in Germany at the age of fifteen. Cowles has a B.A. in History and Religious Studies from the University of San Diego, and holds Master’s degrees in Medieval History from the University of St. Andrews and Theological Studies with an emphasis in the Ethics of War and Peace from Duke University. Stinson holds an B.A. in International Relations and Italian Studies from Tufts University as well as a MALD with an emphasis in Political Systems and Theories from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Between their military upbringing and their academic careers, they bring an urgency to the realities of war. Set in the wider landscape of the late Bronze Age collapse, this realistic and immersive Troy is a perilous place for warriors and politicians alike. It’s a harrowing novel of palace intrigue, the transcendent bond of female friendship, plague, and espionage.
In their letter to readers included in this release, A. D. Rhine shares how their friendship inspired the sisterhood found in the pages of HORSES OF FIRE and how their experiences of global conflict—both personal and in the headlines—solidified their desire to share women’s strength, bravery, and stories of
war, so rarely told. History is written by the victors, but HORSES OF FIRE brings unsung heroes to the fore, powerfully examining how women’s rage can be turned into agency, and that agency can turn into a love that builds rather than tears down. Written with lyrical prose that calls to mind the epic poems that took root in Ancient Greece, HORSES OF FIRE brings readers behind Troy’s walls in a way no tale has done before.