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The Memoirs of Helen of Troy
Amanda Elyot
The woman behind the face that launched a thousand ships tells her own story.
Three Rivers Press
July 2006
On Sale: July 25, 2006
Featuring: Paris; Helen of Troy; Menelaus
336 pages ISBN: 0307338606 EAN: 9780307338600 Trade Size (reprint)
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Romance | Historical
In this lush, compelling novel of passion and loss, Helen
of Troy, a true survivor, tells the truth about her life,
her lovers, and the Trojan War. This is the memoir that she
has written—her legendary beauty still undimmed by age.
Gossips began whispering about Princess Helen from the
moment of her birth. A daughter of the royal house of
Sparta, she was not truly the progeny of King Tyndareus,
they murmured, but of Zeus, king of the gods. Her mother,
Queen Leda, a powerful priestess, was branded an
adulteress, with tragic consequences. To complicate
matters, as Helen grew to adulthood her beauty was so
breathtaking that it overshadowed even that of her jealous
sister, Clytemnestra, making her even more of an outcast
within her own family. So it came as something of a relief
to her when she was kidnapped by Theseus, king of Athens,
in a gambit to replenish his kingdom’s coffers.
But Helen fell in love with the much older Theseus, and to
his surprise, he found himself enamored of her as well. On
her forced return to Sparta, Helen was hastily married off
to the tepid Menelaus for the sake of an advantageous
political alliance. Yet even after years of marriage, the
spirited, passionate Helen never became the docile wife
King Menelaus desired, and when she fell in love with
another man—Paris Alexandros, the prodigal son of King
Priam of Troy—Helen unwittingly set the stage for the
ultimate conflict: a war that would destroy nearly all she
held dear.
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