The sweet girl

"Pythias is her father's daughter, right down to her hard, intelligent slate-grey eyes. Aristotle has never been able to resist a keen mind in another - even in his own girl-child who should be content with the kitchen, the loom and a life dictated by the rhythms of childbearing. His little Pytho is smart, able to best his students in debate and match wits with a roomful of Athenian thinkers. Is she a freak or a harbinger of what women can really be? Hers is a privileged position, a woman who moves in a man's world, protected by the reputation of her philosopher father. But when the great warrior-king Alexander dies a thousand miles from Athens, sentiment turns against anyone associated with him, most especially his famous teacher, Aristotle. Forced to flee, Aristotle and his family head to the garrison town of Chalcis; however, ailing and broken in spirit, the old philosopher soon dies. Without her father, the orphaned sixteen-year-old Pytho quickly discovers that the world is a place of superstition, not logic, and that a girl can be preyed upon by gods and goddesses, as much as by grown men and women. To safely journey to a place in which she can be everything she truly is, Aristotle's daughter will need every ounce of wit she possesses, but she must also learn, quickly, to nurture her capacity to love."

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.