"Fire From Heaven" by Mary Renault
Fire From Heaven is based on Alexander's life up to the age of twenty, when he assumed the kingship on his father Phillip's assassination. Trying to imagine the childhood of someone who was to develop into such an extraordinary person is not an easy task, but Renault does it brilliantly, weaving the thread of known anecdotes together with the skein of her own imagination. Alexander's mother's tumultuous relationship with his father, his training in philosophy under Aristotle, the development of his relationship with Hephaistion and his other companions, killing his first man at twelve, his meeting with the famous Athenian Demosthenes.
