Synopses & Reviews
A lush, seductive novel of the legendary beauty whose face launched a thousand ships
Daughter of a god, wife of a king, prize of antiquity's bloodiest war, Helen of Troy has inspired artists for millennia. Now Margaret George, the highly acclaimed bestselling historical novelist, has turned her intelligent, perceptive eye to the myth that is Helen of Troy.
Margaret George breathes new life into the great Homeric tale by having Helen narrate her own story. Through her eyes and in her voice, we experience the young Helen's discovery of her divine origin and her terrifying beauty. While hardly more than a girl, Helen married the remote Spartan king Menelaus and bore him a daughter. By the age of twenty, the world's most beautiful woman was resigned to a passionless marriage -- until she encountered the handsome Trojan prince Paris. And once the lovers flee to Troy, war, murder, and tragedy become inevitable.
In Helen of Troy, Margaret George has captured a timeless legend in a mesmerizing tale of a woman whose life was destined to create strife -- and destroy civilizations.
Review
Delicious. (People)
Review
An impressive feat of research and imagination. It's no mean trick to resurrect not only ancient Attic politics and lifestyles, but the atmosphere of a time in which the gods truly spoke. (Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander)
Review
A feast . . . George leaves us with the most coveted prize of fiction: a world . . . we wished existed, and that thoroughly does between the covers. (Chicago Tribune)
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Fresh and vivid. (The Washington Post)
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What Ms. George has created with this book is a great summer read: realistic characters, engaging plots and enough mythology and Homer to make it all interesting. (The Dallas Morning News)
Review
Delicious. (
People)
An impressive feat of research and imagination. ItÆs no mean trick to resurrect not only ancient Attic politics and lifestyles, but the atmosphere of a time in which the gods truly spoke. (Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander)
A feast . . . George leaves us with the most coveted prize of fiction: a world . . . we wished existed, and that thoroughly does between the covers. (Chicago Tribune)
Fresh and vivid. (The Washington Post)
What Ms. George has created with this book is a great summer read: realistic characters, engaging plots and enough mythology and Homer to make it all interesting. (The Dallas Morning News)
Synopsis
Acclaimed author Margaret George tells the story of the legendary Greek woman whose face "launched a thousand ships" in this New York Times bestseller.
The Trojan War, fought nearly twelve hundred years before the birth of Christ, and recounted in Homer's Iliad, continues to haunt us because of its origins: one woman's beauty, a visiting prince's passion, and a love that ended in tragedy.
Laden with doom, yet surprising in its moments of innocence and beauty, Helen of Troy is an exquisite page-turner with a cast of irresistible, legendary characters Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, Menelaus, Priam, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, as well as Helen and Paris themselves. With a wealth of material that reproduces the Age of Bronze in all its glory, it brings to life a war that we have all learned about but never before experienced."
Synopsis
The New York Times bestseller from Margaret George, author of Mary, Called Magdalene and Elizabeth I With her amazing ability to summon the voices of historical characters, Margaret George tells the story of the woman whose face "launched a thousand ships" in Helen of Troy. Laden with doom, yet surprising in its moments of innocence and beauty, this is a beautifully told story of a legendary woman and her times. An exquisite page-turner with a cast of irresistible characters--Odysseus, Hector, Achilles, Priam, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, as well as Helen and Paris themselves--and a wealth of material that reproduces the Age of Bronze in all its glory, Helen of Troy brings to life a war that we have all learned about but never before experienced.
About the Author
Margaret George is the author of the bestselling Autobiography of Henry VIII; Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles; The Memoirs of Cleopatra; Mary, Called Magdalene, and her latest New York Times bestseller, Elizabeth I.