"The King Must Die" is my all-time favorite book. I've read it well over 30 times! As well as "The Bull from the Sea". Both books are historical fiction by Mary Renault. They tell the life story of Theseus; King of Athens, from his point of view. Starting from his life at 7 years old until his death. It's a fantastic mix of myth, fact, and fiction!
My favorite passage...
"Deep blue, and black, the Isthmus is in my memory; blue sky above, with seldom a cloud to break it; and always on the right, black plunging rocks with their feet in a blue sea. The pink dusty road before us, the scrub and the dark pines, lay always between these depths of blue. The sea was calm; as one looked down, it drowned the eye like a second zenith, but bluer still; bluer than lapis, or sapphire, or whatever flower is bluest; and then again, in the dark clear shadows round the deep roots of the rocks, green and grape-purple, like the ring-dove's sheen. It must have been seldom I stood in quiet to gaze at it. My eye was sharpened for other matters. Yet it is the blue that I remember."
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