Book description
Lysander is a slave in ancient Sparta, a Helot, but a chance
meeting reveals his noble heritage and he is permitted to begin
training as a Spartan warrior. The vestiges of his life as a slave are
hard to shake off and he struggles to survive the brutal and
nepotistic life of a Spartan-in-training. Worse still, his precious
amulet, the Fire of Ares, is stolen from him, and with it goes some of
his formidable strength. His mother had made him swear he would guard
the amulet with his life, without ever telling him why. Lysander is
desperate to find the missing jewel, but when he picks up the trail,
it leads him to dark secrets about the few people he felt he could
trust, and forces him to make a choice between his Helot friends and
his Spartan instincts.
'The strength of the book is the positive example of the main
character, Lysander. He confronts his weaknesses, tempations and
prejudices and triumphs through integrity and courage ... I have to
agree with my son's verdict that this is a gripping page turner. The
scary bits are tense and well spaced throug the novel'
Michael Ford read English and Classics at Oxford
University, before a stint teaching English in Greece. He worked in
children s non-fiction publishing for several years before becoming an
editor of adult fiction in West London. Spartan is his first children
s novel.
