Purchase
THE MEMOIRS OF HELEN OF TROY
By: 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)
Add to Wish List
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 writtenβher 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 kingdomβs 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 manβParis Alexandros, the prodigal son of King Priam of TroyβHelen unwittingly set the stage for the ultimate conflict: a war that would destroy nearly all she held dear.
| 
© 2003-2026