Cirrus@Austlit

'It was a clash of arms that would echo through the millennia: a hard-fought conflict born of love, pride, greed and revenge; a decade-long siege of the ancient world's greatest city from which nobody will escape unscathed.

'As urgent and passionate as if told for the first time, international besteller Colleen McCullough breathes life into legend, swinging our sympathies from Greece to Troy and back again as they move inexorably towards a fate not even the gods themselves can avert. Here are Greek princess Helen, sensuous and self-indulgent, who deserts a dull husband for the sake of the equally self-indulgent Trojan prince Paris; the haunted warrior Achilles; the heroically noble Hektor; the subtle and brilliant Odysseus; Priam, King of Troy, doomed to make the wrong decisions for the right reasons; and Agamemnon, King of Kings, who consents to the unspeakable to launch his thousand ships, incurring the terrifying wrath of his wife, Klytemnestra.'(Publication summary) 

'The fifth book in the epic Masters of Rome series. Gaul. 54 BC. Julius Caesar sweeps across Gaul, brutally subduing the united tribes who defy the Republic. But, at home, his enemies are orchestrating his downfall and disgrace. Vindictive schemers like Cato and Bibulus, the spineless Cicero, the avaricious Brutus. Even Pompey the Great, Caesar's former ally. But all have underestimated Caesar. And when the Senate refuse to give him his due he marches upon his own country, an army prepared to die for him at his back. For rome is his destiny - a destiny that will impel him triumphantly on to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond, into legend, as the noblest Roman of them all.' (Publication summary)

'New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough re-creates an extraordinary epoch before the mighty Republic belonged to Julius Caesar—when Rome's noblewomen were his greatest conquest.

'His victories were legend—in battle and bedchamber alike. Love was a political weapon he wielded cunningly and ruthlessly in his private war against enemies in the forum. Genius, general, patrician, Gaius Julius Caesar was history. His wives bought him influence. He sacrificed his beloved daughter on the altar of ambition. He burned for the cold-hearted mistress he could never dare trust. Caesar's women all knew—and feared—his power. He adored them, used them, destroyed them on his irresistible rise to prominence. And one of them would seal his fate.' (Publication summary)