THE SWEET GIRL

An evocative love story told from the point of view of Aristotle's sixteen-year-old daughter, Pythias.

Pythias was a toddler in Annabel Lyon’s award-winning first novel, The Golden Mean. In Aristotle’s will (an actual historical document) he made careful provision for Pythias’ arranged marriage. The Sweet Girl is about the resulting power struggle between father and daughter over control of her future; about their family’s flight from Athens after the death of Alexander the Great, and about Pythias’ harrowing ordeal after her father’s death.
We see what it was like to be a little girl coming of age under the tutelage of a brilliant philosopher father, and discover the lived experience of a young woman in ancient Greece. Until her betrothed came home from war to claim her, Pythias was left to the mercy of myriad social forces beyond her control. Although she was sure that she didn’t want to be farmed out arbitrarily to an older man, Pythias also had to find a way around the stranglehold of her society.
In The Sweet Girl we follow her as she navigates dramatic dilemmas with wit, intelligence, and strength, and with surprising and gratifying results.

Annabel Lyon is the author of Oxygen (stories), The Best Thing for You (novellas), which was nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, All-Season Edie (juvenile novel), and The Golden Mean, which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award, the Ethel Wilson Prize, and the Commonwealth Prize. Winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize, The Golden Mean has been translated into fourteen languages and became a #1 bestseller in Canada. The Sweet Girl is a sequel to it. Her latest work for young people, Encore Edie, was released in February 2011 to glowing reviews. Annabel studied classical music, philosophy, and law and taught piano before she decided to write full-time. She lives on the west coast of Canada outside Vancouver, British Columbia, with her partner and two children, who were born during the eight years she took to write The Golden Mean. She teaches at the Creative Writing Department of the University of British Columbia, from which she received her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts.