DIOMEDES In KYPRIOS: Diomedia Series Book 2 by Gregory Michael Nixon – Myths & Legends, Historical Fiction, Bronze Age

Gregory Michael Nixon’s Diomedes in Kyprios, book 2 in the Diomedeia Series, continues the adventures of the godlike yet all too human hero, Diomedes of Tiryns, as he seeks to discover a meaningful destiny in the chaos of the Bronze Age Collapse.

We begin after the fall of the Hittite Empire, four years after the destruction of Troy. He emerges from the dark river that runs through the underworld where the sacrifice of the Hittite Great King has just occurred, and he has rescued the Hittite Queen from certain death. Nearly drowned but still alive, he recalls only that he had vowed to reunite with the former Queen of the Hittites, the woman he loves named Lieia, at Paphos on the island of Kyprios (ancient Cyprus).

Lieia must undergo her own “odyssey” to get to Paphos to meet Diomedes. She depends on her band of protectors, but they pay for fare aboard a ship with evil men who cannot be trusted.

After many adventures, Diomedes arrives in Paphos and is recognized from Troy by the Akhaian (Greek) warriors already there. He becomes a war leader and seeks to unite the Peoples of the Sea gathered on the island of Kyprios for chaos is descending from the end-of-the-era Bronze Age Collapse. He attains his goal and at last meets with Lieia, who through incredible circumstances has also arrived and been acclaimed as the Goddess of Paphos.

After a murderous shipwreck, Lieia has struggled to shore and, because of her extraordinary beauty, has been mistaken for a new incarnation of the ancient Kypriot Goddess of Love. The people save her and celebrate her arrival. She is proclaimed Aphrodite—born of the sea foam. She is made Goddess-Ruler of the city, but this makes her enemies, and she becomes uncertain who she really is.

Diomedes and Lieia rule together, he as military commander, she as goddess-queen. Lieia must overcome the dangerous witch, Myrrha, who challenges her power. Diomedes, in his turn, must deal with two vicious villains who caused Lieia’s shipwreck and the beautiful youth, Adonis, Myrrha’s son, who seeks to kill him and become the lover of Aphrodite.

Nixon draws heavily on ancient legends to write these larger-than-life characters, threading them through this novel with great artistry. This is a short book yet a memorable epic, whose vivid setting and colorful characters will stay with the reader long after finishing the book.

In this Audible audiobook version, the narrator, Simon de Deney, captures the dramatic flair and clear articulation one would expect in mythic Greece, among the Hittites, on ancient Cyprus, and all the places this adventure takes us. De Deney is an actor whose classically trained voice will hold the readers’ full attention, leaving them with the metallic dust of the copper mines of Kyprios in their eyes and the sea spray of the vast Mediterranean on their lips.

For first-time readers/listeners of this series, Diomedes in Kyprios can be read as a stand-alone for the previous book is summed up in flashbacks and a chronological prologue. It will appeal to myth lovers of all ages, but also to those drawn to historical fiction based in the ancient Bronze Age and the mysterious Peoples of the Sea (and, of course, to lovers of historical romance). The book contains serious historical credentials, for the author suggests realistic interpretations of a number of unexplained mysteries of the Bronze Age Collapse.