<div>A wry romp through 1930s mores, social and sexual Progressive for its time as well as ours, The Friendly Young Ladies is a deftly witty comedy set in England between the wars. At eighteen, Elsie has had enough of life at her bickering parents&rsquo; Cornwall home. She decides to join up with her bohemian older sister, Leo, in the city. Leo&rsquo;s life is full of surprises&mdash;not least her significant other, Helen, a beautiful nurse. As Elsie gets acquainted with Leo&rsquo;s world, new characters&mdash;including a novelist and a doctor deluded enough to chase all three women at once&mdash;come into play. With acid humor and a supremely light touch, The Friendly Young Ladies colors in an unseen dimension of the 1930s.</div>

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The Friendly Young Ladies

<div>A WWII soldier embarks on affairs with two very different men in a landmark novel that &ldquo;transcends categorizations&rdquo; (The Telegraph). After being wounded at Dunkirk in World War II, Laurie Odell is sent back home to a rural British hospital. Standing out among the orderlies is Andrew, a bright conscientious objector raised as a Quaker. The unspoken romance between the two men is tested when Ralph, a friend of Laurie&rsquo;s from school, re-enters his life, introducing him into a milieu of jaded, experienced gay men. Will Laurie reconcile himself to Ralph&rsquo;s embrace, or can he offer Andrew the idealized, Platonic intimacy he yearns for? This novel has been called one of the foundation stones of gay literary fiction, ranking alongside James Baldwin&rsquo;s Giovanni&rsquo;s Room and Gore Vidal&rsquo;s The City and the Pillar. Celebrated for its literary brilliance and sincere depiction of complex human emotions, The Charioteer is a stirring and beautifully rendered portrayal of love. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

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The Charioteer

<div>A New York Times&ndash;bestselling novel of the ancient king of Macedon and his lover by the author Hilary Mantel calls &ldquo;a shining light.&rdquo; The Persian Boy centers on the most tempestuous years of Alexander the Great&rsquo;s life, as seen through the eyes of his lover and most faithful attendant, Bagoas. When Bagoas is very young, his father is murdered and he is sold as a slave to King Darius of Persia. Then, when Alexander conquers the land, he is given Bagoas as a gift, and the boy is besotted. This passion comes at a time when much is at stake&mdash;Alexander has two wives, conflicts are ablaze, and plots on the Macedon king&rsquo;s life abound. The result is a riveting account of a great conqueror&rsquo;s years of triumph and, ultimately, heartbreak. The Persian Boy is the second volume of the Novels of Alexander the Great trilogy, which also includes Fire from Heaven and Funeral Games. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. &ldquo;Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&rdquo; &mdash;Hilary Mantel</div>

The Persian Boy

<div>New York Times Bestseller and Man Booker Prize Finalist: A novel of ancient Greece by the author Hilary Mantel calls &ldquo;a shining light.&rdquo; Alexander the Great stands alone as a leader and strategist, and Fire from Heaven is Mary Renault&rsquo;s unsurpassed dramatization of the formative years of his life. His parents fight for their precocious son&rsquo;s love: On one side, his volatile father, Philip, and on the other, his overbearing mother, Olympias. The story tells of the conqueror&rsquo;s two great bonds&mdash;to his horse, Oxhead, and to his dearest friend and eventual lover, Hephaistion&mdash;and of the army he commands when he is barely an adult. Coming of age during the battles for southern Greece, Alexander the Great appears in all of his colors&mdash;as the man who first takes someone&rsquo;s life at age twelve and who swiftly eliminates his rivals as soon as he comes to power&mdash;and emerges as a captivating, complex, larger-than-life figure. Fire from Heaven is the first volume of the Novels of Alexander the Great trilogy, which continues with The Persian Boy and Funeral Games. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. &ldquo;Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&rdquo; &mdash;Hilary Mantel</div>

Fire from Heaven

<div>The New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of The King Must Die continues the story of the mythical Greek hero, Theseus, the founder of Athens. In The Bull from the Sea, the story of Theseus resumes with the hero&rsquo;s return from Knossos. In the wake of his father&rsquo;s suicide, Athens is now Theseus&rsquo;s to rule. With his close friend Pirithoos, Theseus sets out for the land of the Amazons, falling in love with their beautiful leader, Hippolyta. Her boldness and sense of honor match his own, but though they&rsquo;re happy and bear a son, tragedy lies ahead. The Athenians mistrust the foreign Hippolyta, and Theseus is forced to marry Phaedra, his betrothed. War wracks the land, and brings with it death that will change the Athenian king forever. As the darkness gathers, a valiant hero&rsquo;s life draws poignantly to a close. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

The Bull from the Sea

<div>The conclusion to the New York Times&ndash;bestselling trilogy of ancient Greece by the author Hilary Mantel calls &ldquo;a shining light.&rdquo; By the end of his reign, Alexander the Great had seized control of an empire that extended from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. When he died in 323 BC, a fervent scramble for power ensued. Funeral Games is Mary Renault&rsquo;s remarkable novel of this turmoil and the gradual erosion of the Greek empire. The power players include Ptolemy, two father-son teams, and a cadre of influential women&mdash;not least of whom is Eurydike, whose plan is to marry Alexander&rsquo;s disabled brother, Arridaios. Brimming with outsize personalities, brazen plots, and a sweeping sense of history, Funeral Games brings to vivid life the world of Alexander the Great, and the seismic tumult in the wake of his death. Funeral Games is the final volume of the Novels of Alexander the Great trilogy, which begins with The Persian Boy and Fire from Heaven. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. &ldquo;Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&rdquo; &mdash;Hilary Mantel </div>

Funeral Games

<div>New York Times Bestseller: This retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus, king of Athens, is &ldquo;one of the truly fine historical novels of modern times&rdquo; (The New York Times). In myth, Theseus was the slayer of the child-devouring Minotaur in Crete. What the founder-hero might have been in real life is another question, brilliantly explored in The King Must Die. Drawing on modern scholarship and archaeological findings at Knossos, Mary Renault&rsquo;s Theseus is an utterly lifelike figure&mdash;a king of immense charisma, whose boundless strivings flow from strength and weakness&mdash;but also one steered by implacable prophecy. The story follows Theseus&rsquo;s adventures from Troizen to Eleusis, where the death in the book&rsquo;s title is to take place, and from Athens to Crete, where he learns to jump bulls and is named king of the victims. Richly imbued with the spirit of its time, this is a page-turner as well as a daring act of imagination. Renault&rsquo;s story of Theseus continues with the sequel The Bull from the Sea. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

The King Must Die

<div>This novel of ancient Greece, featuring Plato and a young actor, by the bestselling author of the Novels of Alexander the Great, is &ldquo;a shining light&rdquo; (Hilary Mantel, Man Booker Award&ndash;winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies). In the fourth century BC, Nikeratos is an actor, a devotee of Plato, and a friend of Dion of Syracuse. Their relationship gives Nikeratos rare proximity to the Greek political stage at a moment when ambitions are about to collide. In Syracuse, the young tyrant Dionysios the Younger rules, but Dion is determined to bring democracy and strength to the city. In an effort to curb Dionysios&rsquo;s excesses, Dion has Plato pose as a tutor&mdash;only to learn that the corrupt youth won&rsquo;t be so easily contained. With a combination of erudition and storytelling force, Renault immerses the reader in intrigue and crafts a vibrant Syracuse that leaps off the page. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

The Mask of Apollo

<div>New York Times bestseller: A &ldquo;highly superior historical novel&rdquo; about the bond that grows between two men in ancient Athens (Saturday Review). Alexias is a young aristocrat living during the end of Athens&rsquo;s Golden Age. Prized for his beauty and athletic prowess, Alexias studies under Sokrates with his closest friend, Lysis. Together, the young men come of age in an Athens on the verge of great upheaval. They attend the Olympics, partake in symposia, fight on the battlefields of the Peloponnesian War, and fall in love. The first of Mary Renault&rsquo;s celebrated historical novels of ancient Greece, The Last of the Wine follows Alexias and Lysis into adulthood, when Athens is defeated by Sparta, the Thirty Tyrants take hold of the city, and the lives of both men are changed forever. Through their friendship, Renault opens a vista onto ancient Greek life, uncovering its vibrancy, culture, and political strife, and offers an unforgettable story of love, honor, loyalty, and the remarkable bond between two men. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. &ldquo;Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&rdquo; &mdash;Hilary Mantel</div>

The Last of the Wine

<div>The New York Times&ndash;bestselling portrayal of the life of ancient Greece&rsquo;s lyric poet. &ldquo;[Renault&#39;s] historical novels . . . are among the finest ever written&rdquo; (The Washington Post Book World). Simonides of Keos lived during the fifth and sixth centuries BC, a fertile period for the arts, when myths were being acted out and verse had just begun to be written down. In this evocative portrayal of Simonides, the poet is learning to master his craft and secure fickle patrons, and his travels place him at the scene of many central historical events. This fact, along with his friendship with gallivanting, brilliant Anakreon, makes him a perfect guide to the age. The Praise Singer is faithfully grounded in history, with all the immediacy of Mary Renault&rsquo;s acclaimed novels of the ancient world, offering an unforgettable portrait of such events as the Persian invasion of Ionia, the reign of Pisistratos in Athens, and the fall of Hippias and Hipparchos. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

The Praise Singer

<div>Two wary souls find a second chance at love while rock climbing in the English countryside in this novel from the New York Times&ndash;bestselling author. On vacation in the North Devon countryside, Neil Langton looks back on the wreckage of his past. The wounds from his former marriage are still raw; his wife cheated on him and his young daughter died. The teacher and rock climber believes hope to be behind him until he comes across Ellen, a young woman staying at the same guesthouse as he, and whom he saves from a mountainside accident. Struggling to deal with her feelings for a pilot step-cousin who died in service, Ellen has her own romantic scars. If their connection is to endure, Neil and Ellen must carefully confront their painful pasts. Filled with a memorable cast of secondary characters in austerity Britain, North Face is a love story rich in atmosphere and tension, from a master of the novelist&rsquo;s craft.</div>

North Face

<div>An &ldquo;extraordinarily moving&rdquo; novel about a doctor trapped between his wife and his lover, by a New York Times&ndash;bestselling author (Boston Herald). Doctor Kit Anderson is starting to see his marriage in a new light. Relations are strained with Janet, his beautiful wife, who now strikes him as petty and narcissistic. With no shortage of work to busy him, Anderson resigns himself to the consolations of professional life&mdash;that is, until he meets Christie, the great-niece of a dying patient. Warm and vivacious, Christie stands in stark contrast to Kit&rsquo;s wife, and suggests hope of a second and more passionate act to his life. How long can their affair be kept secret, though, and does Kit want the best for Christie, or only for himself? </div>

Kind Are Her Answers

<div>An &ldquo;intriguing and invaluable&rdquo; biography of Alexander the Great by the novelist whose fiction redefined Ancient Greece (The New York Times). Acclaimed writer Mary Renault is widely known for her provocative historical novels of Alexander the Great and his lovers. But she also authored this nonfiction classic, a fresh, illuminating look at a man whose legend has remained larger than life for more than two thousand years. From his dysfunctional family dynamics to his molding under Aristotle, from his shocking rise to power at age twenty to the staggering violence of his military campaigns, Renault is clear-eyed about Alexander&rsquo;s accomplishments and his flaws. Infectious in its enthusiasm, this is a penetrating study of an unrivaled conqueror, enduring icon, and fascinating man. Hailed as both &ldquo;a splendid achievement in nonfiction&rdquo; (The Plain Dealer) and &ldquo;the perfect companion to her Alexander novels&rdquo; (The Wall Street Journal), Renault&rsquo;s engrossing and accessible biography stands alone in the pantheon of Alexander the Great literature. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.</div>

The Nature of Alexander

<div>A New York Times&ndash;bestselling trilogy about the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and its leader from an author hailed by Hilary Mantel as &ldquo;a shining light.&rdquo; Fire from Heaven is a gripping account of the formative years of Alexander&rsquo;s life. The story tells of his complex relationship with his parents; of his two great bonds&mdash;to his horse, Oxhead, and to his dearest friend and eventual lover, Hephaistion&mdash;and of the army he commands when he is barely an adult. Coming of age during the battles for southern Greece, Alexander the Great first takes someone&rsquo;s life at age twelve and swiftly eliminates his rivals as soon as he comes to power, emerging in this novel as a captivating and complex figure. The iconic Persian Boy centers on the Macedon king as seen through the eyes of his lover and most faithful attendant, the eunuch Bagoas. When Bagoas is very young, his father is murdered and he is sold as a slave to King Darius of Persia. Then, when Alexander conquers the land, he is given Bagoas as a gift, and the boy is besotted. This passion comes at a time when much is at stake&mdash;Alexander has two wives, conflicts are ablaze, and plots on his life abound. The result is a riveting account of a great conqueror&rsquo;s years of triumph and, ultimately, heartbreak. In Funeral Games, a bloody struggle for power rages after the death ofAlexander, leaving an empire that extends from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. The power players include Ptolemy, two father-son teams, and a cadre of influential women&mdash;not least of whom is Eurydike, whose plan is to marry Alexander&rsquo;s disabled brother, Arridaios. Brimming with outsize personalities, brazen plots, and a sweeping sense of history, Funeral Games brings to vivid life the world of Alexander the Great, and the seismic tumult in the wake of his death. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author. &ldquo;Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&rdquo; &mdash;Hilary Mantel</div>

Apple Books

The Novels of Alexander the Great

<div>Mary Renault&rsquo;s inventive debut novel: A love-triangle drama set against the backdrop of hospital life Working in a hospital in 1930s Britain, two colleagues fall into an emotionally charged relationship. Vivian and Mic work demanding jobs and must endure long gaps between their secret meetings. But it is their relationship with Vivian&rsquo;s brother, Jan, a charismatic scientist, that really complicates their union. Before falling for Vivian, Mic had nursed feelings for independent-minded Jan. As for Vivian, her romantic experience has left her with doubts about commitment. For this fraught trio, big questions about love&mdash;what and whom it is for&mdash;demand answers. In this powerful, sparklingly written debut tale of romance between the wars, Mary Renault showcases the talents that made her one of the twentieth century&rsquo;s most beloved novelists. </div>

Purposes of Love

<div>Winner of an MGM prize: A doctor finds love with a talented, handsome younger man&mdash;who happens to be her patient Hilary Mansell is a talented young doctor, but she is unlucky in love and still recovering from losing out on a keenly sought appointment, one that was awarded to none other than her former lover. A new position in the scenic Cotswolds offers the balm of tranquillity. But life proves less than placid when Hilary meets Julian on her hospital rounds. He is attractive, intelligent, and recovering from a riding injury. He is also much younger than Hilary and dealing with an overbearing mother. The two lovers are captured in unforgettable richness by Mary Renault&rsquo;s pen. The intimacy of their feelings, the nuances of romance, and the cadence of pitch-perfect dialogue render Return to Night a love story like no other.</div>

Mary Renault
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Books By Mary Renault (16 Books)