“Being a woman would make military life easier.”

That was what a bitter 29-year-old South Korean Army sergeant drunkenly told himself after losing an overseas posting to a female colleague. He died in an accident that same night, and woke up as Arista, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a Spartan warrior.

There was just one problem.

In Sparta, women may be tough, respected, and responsible for managing the household, but they do not carry hoplites’ weapons or stand in the phalanx.

Arista refuses to give up the only life she knows. Training in secret with her brother, she puts her military experience to use wherever she can: organizing supplies, exposing corruption, improving coastal defenses, and turning battlefield logistics into an unexpected weapon. Her abilities eventually catch the eye of the rising Spartan general Brasidas, drawing her into the Peloponnesian War itself.

From besieged cities and naval campaigns to daring raids and desperate escapes, Arista finds herself fighting a war she was never supposed to be part of, and earning a name the Athenians will not soon forget.

There are no female warriors in Sparta.

So Arista will just have to become one.