Good day, happy weekend! I’m Elena and thanks for reading Alessandro III di Macedonia- Alexander the Great and Hellenism! I’d like to announce you today a book published about a month ago that interests me very much but about which there is little information on-line. Let’s find out together:

In the Company of Friends

(The God-Born #1)

by Argent Wood

Independently Published, 2023

Before he was Alexander the Great, he was simply Alexander. They say the child is father to the man. Alexander was no exception. Born at a time of turmoil into a family fraught with intrigue and danger, Alexander would come to be shaped by the adults, events, and experiences of his early years.
But this is not a children’s story. His world was harsh and cruel. In his childhood and youth, he would have to learn quickly how to survive in a world of murder politics, border wars and betrayal. But it was also a world of loyal friends, grand dreams and tales of glory and gods.
This novel, Book 1 of a trilogy, is a fictional recreation of his early years spun from the ancient sources, the author’s imaginings, in-depth research of his times, and a lifelong fascination with the mystery that is and was Alexander. The only depiction we have of Alexander from his own time and his own world, is the painting, claimed to be of him, that was found in a tomb in Aigai (modern Vergina). As in all things to do with Alexander, even the occupant of that tomb is in question. Nothing is known for certain. He is still a mystery, pieced together from later writings and art.
All we can know for certain is that once he lived in this world and travelled through it on a quest of his own. Here is one possibility of how that journey began.

This book, the first in a trilogy, follows Alexander and his lifelong companion Hephaistion on their journey to manhood in a world where friendship was sacred, power was seized by those who were ruthless, in a world where the ancient Gods were real.
Born into a world where aristocratic families fought one another to gain power and battles were the measure of a man’s courage, Alexander and Hephaistion must fight for survival. King Philip, Alexander’s father, is a force of nature: intelligent, ruthless and cunning, he is determined to make his bloodline a dynasty that lasts. Against this, Alexander’s mother, Olympias, fights tirelessly for her own position and for her son’s right to be king. But not without great cost to her son.
Walk with them as Alexander and Hephaistion find their way through a maze of loyal friendships and devastating enemies, where each choice they make determines whether or not they will survive.
This is a story of power – how it is used, gained and held on to – but more than that, it is a story of love and how Alexander and Hephaistion will face and endure love’s challenges through war, adversity, personal conflicts and the intrigues of those who would see them fail.

I reached out the author and these are some more informations I have. This book is the first of a trilogy about Alexander the Great and his lifelong companion, Hephaestion. Book 1 starts the story with Alexander aged 5 and continues until the destruction of Thebes. The other two books are already written. Book 2 will be published later this year and Book 3 will follow early in 2024. This trilogy is the product of a lifelong interest and study of Alexander and his friends, his time and 4th Century Macedonia and Greece. It’s based on extensive study of the sources and is as far as time and events are concerned, as accurate as the author can make it while maintaining its fictional base. The characterisations, conversations and personal events are, of course, fictional but well-grounded in the reality of their times. It is not a book suitable for young readers as there are some incidents in which the author has dealt with the realty of power, how it is used and abused by those for whom holding on to or gaining power was their means to their survival in a brutal world. The author also told me: “The trilogy started as a series of short stories about Alexander and his friends taken from the ancient sources. I would read of something that happened, mentioned only briefly and my imagination would take over and fill in all the gaps, of why and how and who. Over the years, I filled in the gaps between these stories until the stories became a novel and the novel became so big, I divided into three separate books, each one following from where the other left off. So I didn’t really decide to write a trilogy, it just happened.”

The first book has almost 500 pages and on the one hand it intrigues me a lot, on the other hand writing not only a book but even a trilogy this long (assuming that the other two books will also have more or less the same number of pages) is a risk that if it is successful it will make it into a very very beautiful or a bit heavy trilogy. We just have to read it or, if you trust in my opinion, wait for me to read it because it’s a must read for me! I don’t know if there will be homoerotic love scenes, I know it’s raw for battles but sexually I don’t know. You can check the author’s website argentwood.com. You can find the book in paperback, Kindle or ePub version on your preferred on-line bookstore.

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Happy weekend to everyone,

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