Margaret Ball Duchess of Aquitaine: A Novel of Eleanor Review

Overall Rating

Duchess of Aquitaine: A Novel of Eleanor
Margaret Ball
St. Martin's, Jun 2006, $34.95
ISBN 0312205331

At 15, Eleanor knows as the heiress to Aquitaine and Poitou, men will come out of woodwork to claim her as their bride upon the death of her father. She believes that no one less than a king should be her husband. Her goal is to become the Queen of France and not the wife of some duke or worse.

The Duchess achieves her objective when she marries King Louis VII, but finds her spouse a loser especially after the disastrous Second Crusade. Concluding he is not worthy of her Eleanor looks across the Channel where Geoffrey of Anjou reigns. However, following her divorce of Louis VII, it is the son Henry Plantagenet that catches her attention.

Biographical fiction fans will receive immense pleasure from this deep look at a woman of ambition who marries to achieve her political objective of ruling as a queen. Eleanor sets her mind to become the monarch early on and chooses Louis, who she dubs a loser so she turns to the English throne. The descriptions of the era in France, the Holy Land, Byzantine, and England run deep while the key characters come alive. Margaret Ball provides a powerful look at the twelfth century through the escapes of Eleanor, queen of two countries.

Harriet Klausner