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Overview: Mary Renault (1905-1983) was best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece with their vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus, Socrates, Plato and Alexander the Great.
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics > LGBT
Book #1 – Kind Are Her Answers
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—that is, until he meets Christie, the great-niece of a dying patient. Warm and vivacious, Christie stands in stark contrast to Kit’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?
Book #2 – North Face
Two wary souls find a second chance at love while rock climbing in the English countryside in this novel from the New York Times–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’s craft.
Book #3 – Purposes of Love
Mary Renault’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’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—what and whom it is for—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’s most beloved novelists.
Book #4 – Return to Night
Winner of an MGM prize: A doctor finds love with a talented, handsome younger man—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’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.
Book #5 – The Friendly Young Ladies
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’ Cornwall home. She decides to join up with her bohemian older sister, Leo, in the city. Leo’s life is full of surprises—not least her significant other, Helen, a beautiful nurse. As Elsie gets acquainted with Leo’s world, new characters—including a novelist and a doctor deluded enough to chase all three women at once—come into play. With acid humor and a supremely light touch, The Friendly Young Ladies colors in an unseen dimension of the 1930s.
Book #6 – The Last of the Wine
New York Times bestseller: A “highly superior historical novel” about the bond that grows between two men in ancient Athens (Saturday Review).
Alexias is a young aristocrat living during the end of Athens’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’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.
Book #7 – The Mask of Apollo
This novel of ancient Greece, featuring Plato and a young actor, by the bestselling author of the Novels of Alexander the Great, is “a shining light” (Hilary Mantel, Man Booker Award–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’s excesses, Dion has Plato pose as a tutor—only to learn that the corrupt youth won’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.
Book #8 – The Praise Singer
The New York Times–bestselling portrayal of the life of ancient Greece’s lyric poet. “[Renault’s] historical novels . . . are among the finest ever written” (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’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.
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