Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers' HILARY MANTEL'Nowhere else in fiction have Alexander's beauty and charisma blazed with such potency' TOM HOLLAND'Mary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex and eloquent' MADELINE MILLER 'All my sense of the ancient world - its values, its style, the scent of its wars and passions - comes from Mary Renault' EMMA DONAGHUE 'Passionate and captivating' SEAN HEWITT