‘Visceral, engrossing . . . A truly remarkable feat’ Amanda Foreman ‘Vividly captured . . . Haynes’s fascination with this long vanished world is evident in every line’ Guardian Jocasta is just fifteen when she is ordered to marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. But it is her duty to produce an heir that will alter the course of her life forever. Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents’ tragic deaths, it was the one place she felt safe. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change. With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it . . . The Children of Jocasta follows the lives of two forgotten women from the myths of Oedipus and Antigone, casting fresh light on these ancient and engrossing stories. ‘Glorious, gripping and brutal . . . I loved it’ Victoria Derbyshire ‘A wonderful and inventive take on an ancient tale’ The Times