In this sequel to The War at Troy, the trademark lyricism, lucidity, and mythic power is present in this novel that offers a timely interpretation of one of the world's great stories. After ten years of war, Troy has fallen, yet the gods have turned against the victorious Argives—and their ordeals have only just begun. Agamemnon sails back to Mycenae, where Clytaemnestra has nursed a vengeful fury over his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenaia. Meanwhile, Menelaus must decide the fate of Helen, over whose incomparable beauty the war was fought. Odysseus, traumatized by the slaughter his own ingenuity unleashed, no longer believes himself fit to return to his wife and son. Driven both by tempests and torment, he embarks on a voyage that will take him to the margins of the world and deep into the shadows of his own heart.**

Soon after moving to the secluded Norfolk village of Munding, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with the ageing poet Edward Nesbit and his young lover Laura. They are obsessively researching the lives of Sir Henry Agnew and his daughter Louisa who lived in Munding in the nineteenth century and were deeply engaged in alchemical practices. By recovering the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, Edward and Laura hope to find an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. Once drawn into their fervent quest for knowledge, Alex finds himself entangled in a passionate and intense intrigue that reaches across two centuries. A beautifully written, ambitious and captivating novel, which takes a profound look at issues of nature, human existence and forgotten knowledge, The Chymical Wedding, which won the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, is already considered a classic for its stylistic prowess and philosophical resonances.

Vigorous new life is breathed into the myth's of Homer's Iliad in Lindsay Clarke's new dramatic retelling of the wars fought for the Bronze Age City of Troy. Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector are skilfully rejuvenated in this startlingly contemporary drama of the passions. The people who lived in those days were closer to gods than we are, and great deeds and marvels were commoner then, which is why the stories we have from them are nobler and richer than our own. So that those stories should not pass from the earth, I have decided to set down everything I know of the stories of the war at Troy -- of the way it began, of the way it was fought, and of the way in which it was ended. With these words, Phemius the bard of Ithaca and friend to Odysseus, opens Lindsay Clarke's compelling new retelling of the myths and legends that grew up around the war that was fought for the Bronze Age city of Troy and have magnetized the imagination of the world ever since. their destinies in the timeless zone where myth and history intersect and where the conflicts of the human heart are mirrored by quarrels among immortal gods. Peleus and Thetis, Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector -- all are given vigorous new life in a version of their stories which remains faithful to the mythic form in which they first appeared yet engages the reader in a startlingly contemporary drama of the passions. THE WAR AT TROY speaks to a world still racked by violent conflict in ways which address important aspects of our own experience while at the same time providing imaginative access to the rich store of mythology which is our heritage from the ancient world.

As war-reporter Martin Crowther arrives in Umbria, still raw from a recent assignment in Africa, and from a failing love affair back home, a storm hits and the sky opens. Things are powerfully on the move inside him too as he comes to the small village of Fontanalba, on a mission to track down two friends from a lifetime ago. Adam and Marina are the estranged children of his mentor, Hal Brigshaw, who is nearing the end of a turbulent life and wants to summon them home. But there are good reasons for their self-imposed exile, and not all of them are understood, and not all are in the past. An air of secrecy also surrounds preparations for an event at Fontanalba in which Adam and Marina have an extraordinary role to play. As Martin waits, trapped between duty and desire, he is both intrigued and dismayed by his dealings with a close-knit community, who seem bent on protecting their own - and on shaking the ground of Martin's life.Review"Lindsay Clarke weaves a stunning, compelling tale that tackles the biggest theme of all: the existence of evil, and how ordinary, fallible mortals come to terms with Man's astonishing capacity for brutality and venality... The Water Theatre will linger long beyond the turning of the last page. It is difficult to remember a recent book that is at once so beautiful and yet so thought provoking." - The Times "Clarke has a gift for believably melding the visible world and human life with larger spiritual and metaphysical forces." - The Financial Times "It is a rare pleasure and surprise to read a new book whose prose is so rich and emotionally resonant... Lindsay Clarke has an enviable command of character, time, and place. He is almost Lawrentian in his ability to depict both the power and beauty of landscape, and tender or tragically fraught emotional relationships... This is a significant and ambitious work by a master of his craft." - The Independent About the AuthorLindsay Clarke is the author of 7 novels, including The Chymical Wedding, which won the Whitbread Award for Fiction in 1989. He has been Writer in Residence at the University of Wales, Cardiff, where he became a long-term Associate of the MA Creative Writing programme, is Creative Consultant to the Pushkin Trust in Northern Ireland, and has directed conferences at Dartington, been Scholar-in-Residence at Schumacher College, and has lectured widely in England abroad and tutored many courses for the Arvon Foundation. He lives in Somerset with his wife who is a ceramic artist.