The Avignon Quintet

Avignon: the kingdom of kings and Popes, capital of the historic South of France, heart of legendary Provence. The entwined lives of a group of friends – and lovers – are transformed forever by the outbreak of World War II. But their dramatic present only plunges them further into the darkness of an ancient past, as they become entangled in buried plots, gnostic cults, religious rituals, and a mysterious hunt for hidden Knight’s Templar treasure. From Hitler’s Europe to the medieval world, French chateaus to Egyptian deserts, The Avignon Quintet is an epic symphony of ecstasy and terror, madness and memory, passion and death. Consisting of five majestic novels – Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx – it is a wild, wise masterpiece that could only be written by the literary master of his century, Lawrence Durrell.