The Summer Queen: A Medieval Tale of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France (Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1) Paperback – July 1, 2014

Elizabeth Chadwick is truly one of this generation's best voices. She once again has proven her ability to weave a story so powerful and poignant that it brings out a plethora of human emotion in the characters and in the reader. I rarely give books five stars, but this was truly worthy of of the highest rating. Knowing that this is to be followed in the future by two more books to give Eleanor, or as Ms. Chadwick lovingly chose instead, Aliénor (the langue d'oc spelling her beloved Aquitaine and how she would have referred to herself) the Duchess of Aquitaine the attention to detail that her life deserves.Everyone who knows anything about Aliénor of Aquitaine is aware of her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of England and intense relationship with her sons by him, but few know of the hardships she endured through her first marriage. A match made for her by her beloved father in the hopes of securing her future and that of Aquitaine through a marriage with the young king of France, Louis VII, her hopes for an independent future with a marriage for love instead of convenience are dashed. A marriage of political strategy, Aliénor and Louis were hardly more than children when the were wed (she was 13, he 17). Louis was a second son, therefore not meant to be king, but the untimely death of his brother left him heir to to throne of France instead of the servant of God that he so desperately wanted to be. This would end up making Louis a very poor monarch and husband. There are moments early in the novel where we see both Aliénor and Louis trying to make an honest go at it, but soon, all those with ambitions to rule France through a young king come forward, Aliénor and his mother, Adelaide of Maurienne, included. Adelaide was a skilled politician and was very involved in French statecraft during her husband's reign.We follow Aliénor as she begins her new life at the French court as both a duchess and a queen along with her sister, Petronella. Aliénor is no ordinary royal teen bride. She is aware that she is no more than a pawn in a real life chess game, and she soon realizes that France and Aquitaine go together about as well as oil and water, and her relationships with her new husband and her mother-in-law are rocky at best. They find fault in everything she does. The Dowager Queen's piety invites many of Christendom's most fervent and zealous monks and priests to find a home at the court of France, and a home as advisors to the young king. The story is interwoven with battles of will between Aliénor and zealots such as Bernard of Clairvaux (this man had a following that was nothing short of a cult) and a Templar named Thierry de Galeran who both see Aliénor as nothing but the embodiment of the sins of Eve and would do anything in their power to remove what they see as the cancerous tumor of a wife to their saintly king. But there is the devout, stern, yet still kind Abbé Suger, whose influence on the king is immense, and though one might not call them friends, she knows she has an ally in this strong man. The author is sure to give him credit where it's due; because of him we have the cathedral of Saint-Denis in Paris. One of the earliest examples of gothic architecture, it served as the burial place for most of France's monarchs. Sadly during the French Revolution most of the royal tombs, including that of Aliénor (although buried in Fontevraud Abbey) were destroyed. There are no bodily remains in her tomb, but luckily the effigy still stands.This book is full of true to life characters who can make you feel everything on the human scale of emotion. I didn't find any character a two dimensional cutout. I felt that justice was done especially to Louis and to Petronella, Aliénor's only sister. Other books have made Louis come off as a wimp (which in ways he is but it's not ALL that he is) at the call of the church with no emotion in him at all when in reality he was a very complex man. This novel goes deep into his psyche and gets to the reasons of what motivates him to take on things like the disastrous 2nd crusade, and his eventual agreement to an annulment from Aliénor. Petronella is portrayed as a woman who is dominated by her emotions, usually to get own detriment. Even her marriage to a close member of the French royal family is a whirlwind and the relationship begins while her future husband is still married. We also get a glimpse of young Henry when he was still Duke of Anjou and Normandy and he embodies everything that Louis is not. What could be more attractive to Aliénor?Back in 2010, many may remember as the year of Eleanor. There were maybe 10 or more books written about her, and I didn't like many of them. They just came off as flat, just another Eleanor novel. Author Christy English tried to cover this period of Aliénor's life in her novel TO BE QUEEN. I didn't like it very much for the reasons about Louis' character stated above, and it was just kind of, well, blah. Everyone was a cardboard cutout, especially Aliénor. But it was because it was about this period in Aliénor's life that made me pick it up in the first place. THE SUMMER QUEEN covers that period in detail and is what I believe Ms. English was trying for. I've yet to be let down by an Elizabeth Chadwick book and I'm looking forward to the next installment in her vision of Aliénor's life. This will be on my list of best books of 2014. Read it and savor!

Anything about Eleanor is enjoyable but this far exceeded my expectations. It is a vivid and enjoyable adaptation of her life.

The Summer Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine--Alienor woke at dawn. The tall candle that had been left to burn all night was almost a stub, and even through the closed shutters she could hear the cockerels on roosts, walls, and dung heaps, crowing the city of Poitiers awake. --Eleanor of Aquitaine, the English Queen who was the bride stolen from the French King. I have read exactly one romance novel about her story in the past and I can't recall a single detail. The fact is, she's a heavy-weighted historical person. The mother of three kings, the matron of the Plantagenet dynasty. With every historical figure, there is a lot known about their lives but even more that is unknown.Now Elizabeth Chadwick is an amazing author. She is the author of my absolutely favourite novel, Children of Destiny, which I am so disappointed I cannot get on Kindle, which means I will be dragging out my paperback to review. But back to Eleanor, or rather Alienor. I can think of no better author to tackle this great historical figure then Elizabeth Chadwick.And she does tackle it. In exquisite detail. And unfortunately, I found it was too many details for me. The start of the novel was amazing, the story of a young girl who loves her father, saying goodbye as he goes on a religious pilgrimage. This young girl soon finds herself the Duchess of Aquitaine after his passing and in the same moment, her apparent betrothal to the prince of France.Thinking about the story in abstracts, it actually still gets me very excited, because it is a story of love, hope, power and sadness. But when it comes down to the politics, those were heavy-handed and frankly, boring. There will be a party of novel lovers who will enjoy the absolute meticulous details that went into this novel.Alienor's development from a child (because even at 13 and getting married, she is a child) to a woman is amazing. She holds on to a notion of freedom throughout. And there is the deep underlying sadness at the reality of her position. Despite being the heir to Aquitaine, her worth is nothing without a husband. That is why her marriage to Louis is so important. And even as the Queen of France her only value is to bear children, particularly a male heir. She accepts this with as much humility as she could muster. Unfortunately this leaves her bitter, particularly towards her daughters. It's a perpetual cycle.Louis is another interesting character. He starts as a young, scared boy who is thrown into a marriage at a point when he was just grappling with the reality that he would not be dedicating his life to God. And this taints his reign becoming obsessed with religious propriety. He ends up mistrustful of Alienor for being a woman and his passion in the physical act of love turns into anger when she fails to have a son. He ends up almost scary and though he doesn't often physically harm Alienor, he very obviously mentally harms her.Petronilla, the younger sister of Alienor, is a minor character but extremely colourful. She is naive and desperate in love. She finds temporary happiness in marriage but her deep seeded issues are obvious and become more pronounced as the novel progresses.I am tempted to continue the series because I really want to know more about Alienor's life as she becomes Queen a second time. To realize her fear of moving even further away from her beloved Aquitaine. To see her reaction when she realizes her second husband's infidelity. Or does his love for her make him leave his many mistresses? I felt a slight disappointment that Henry and Alienor married out of power arrangement as opposed to passion but I believe the passion is there and will very obviously grow.Rating: 6/10Don't confuse this rating as an endorsement to skip this novel. But understand what you're getting into. Filter through the dragging politics and engross yourself in the interesting characters and heartbreaking circumstances.Author: Elizabeth ChadwickSeries: Eleanor of Aquitaine #1Date completed: June 19, 2016Length: long, 12-14 hoursSource of book: Bookbub deal May 2015, purchased from Amazon.com for $1.99. Regular price $9.99 of my reviews at [...] Read more

I haven’t actually finished reading this book yet, in fact I’m only on page 49. I would never normally review a book without having finished it. But I will give my reasons. I have wanted this book for a while, this is a period I’ve been interested in for so long, and I was enjoying it at first. However, Eleanor is 13 at the beginning of the book and a few chapters in she gets married and her marriage is consummated. This was all normal for the period but it’s really not something I feel comfortable reading about. Infact I had to skip pages because it was grossing me out so much. I’ve tried to pretend in my head she’s older but I know she isn’t. To make matters worse, At the start of the book I had been imaging her as my 13 year old daughter. It’s not like it’s graphic but it’s enough detail. It’s too sexualised considering the person you are reading about is 13, it’s not just done in a way to make you understand what this young woman was going through. For example ‘it was pleasurable on the occasions when Louis lingered over the fore play last’! I’ve looked at other reviews and googled it and no one else seems to have commented on this. Maybe I’ll get over it soon, and then I’ll rewrite my review. Maybe as she gets older in the book it will be ok :/

I bought and read Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick and wanted to try something else by her. One of the problems of studying history at school is that there is so much history to cover in not a lot of time. So I bought the Summer Queen because whilst I had heard the Eleanor of Aquitane and knew that she was a major historical figure in both French and English history, I knew nothing at all about her. This is the first book of a trilogy that I will read in its entirety. What I like about the author is that she provides the history in a very accessible form. Yes of course there are elements that are bound to be highly fictionalised, but having read up on some of the history after finishing the book, it seemed to have followed faithfully the actual historical events.I am bound to compare Elizabeth Chadwick with Philippa Gregory of whose books I have read only two I admit, but my own preference is definitely for the former. I think that the books are better written with less padding. Some complain that there is an element of Mills and Boon in the fictionalised element, but to be honest, it is such a small part as to be insignificant and it does keep the pages turning.I really enjoyed this book and learned some history along the way!

I was recommended to Elizabeth Chadwick by my sister, who recently died. So I originally began reading it as a nod to her. But thank you dearest Susanne, for the recommendation.Having read a lot of Philippa Gregory and the Tudor times, it was good to learn a little about their predecessors the Plantaganets. It helps put later history into context.We follow Alienor from her childhood as the Duke of Aquitaine's daughter and heir, with her hopes and dreams. They are smashed when her Father dies prematurely and she becomes the Duchess of a very rich and powerful land - and a very desirable marriage prospect. Her Father had given thought to that, and arranged for her marriage to Louis vii at the tender age of 13.We discover what a strong woman she is, accompanying her husband on the Crusades, and the hardship that journey entailed, of her inability to bear sons for him (how I wish these men knew the genetics we now do!), And the eventual breakdown of that marriage, closely followed, for her security, by marriage to Henry of Anjou, though this time arranged by her.Chadwick has researched the history thoroughly and writes in an easy style, dare I say it, similar to Gregory. The comparison is only because I came to her first.If you like to learn of our history but don't want to wade through s text book, I can recommend this book -you'll find you're flicking through Google whilst reading it to get more background too!

I have read a few of Elizabeth Chadwick's books in the days when I got books from the library, and have just found The Summer Queen on Kindle. I could not put it down, and luckily for me, I didn't have much else to do for a day or so, because all I did was read.I have always been fascinated by Eleanor of Aquitaine, but most of what I knew was when she was married to Henry 11 (and from the film, The Lion in Winter, and a couple of very old Norah Lofts books).This book held me absolutely fascinated. Obviously some of it was guesswork, but written in such a way that every word was believable.Thank you very much Elizabeth Chadwick for giving me a couple of wonderful days.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book.I liked the way Eleanor (Alienor, as according to the author, it’s as her name appears in the Anglo-Norman texts) is portrayed and how the story, even if a bit too factual at times, was interesting to read. Bonus points for the steamy scenes (right quantity and right amount of detail: not too little, not too much) and for including that bit of speculation on her vassal (not going to include spoilers here).Considering we know already how the ‘story’ ends as this is well-known history, then what makes the most interesting element to explore in historical fiction, in my opinion, is each character’s thoughts, reactions and feelings along with the speculative gaps. While the author did a good job, I have the certain reservations:– The ‘Akashic records’ as she mentions in her author’s note, I am not too sure what to think of this;– The constant focus on specific emotions to describe a character’s tone or reaction such as ‘anger’ or ‘happiness’. Basically didn’t follow the “show, don’t tell” principle, which is a shame, considering the character’s development and general descriptions were very good.Apart from that, I thought there was a good use of the third person omniscient POV – I am impressed myself because I am usually not a fan of this type of narration, but I thought the story flowed quite well, considering we had access to many different character’s thoughts and emotions within the same chapter.