The Summer Queen

Historical fiction based on the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine, but with some modern sensibilities and drama thrown in.

This was actually generally enjoyable if you make allowances for the fact that the writer isn't trying to present a 100% historically accurate account of Eleanor's life. Often times, we see her inwardly questioning religious tenements which would be pretty sacrilegious thoughts to have in her day, openly denouncing misogyny and, while she doesn't exactly advocate women's rights exactly, she has thoughts about how women are treated back then which sounded more like the writer's 21st century observations on medieval society than thoughts that the real Eleanor of Aquitaine would likely have harboured. But if you put all these aside, and just treat this as a sort of slightly modernised, dramafied, almost soap-opera version of the life of Eleanor, you might enjoy it as I did, seeing how I breezed through all 470+ pages of it in just 2 days and I wasn't even hurrying myself.

Generally, the characters exhibited broadly realistic vibes. Eleanor herself is not portrayed to be some kind of medieval suffragette warrior or feminist, but a woman who had to live, survive, and thrive within the sphere and social roles that she had been born in. I enjoyed reading her POV, but I felt like I didn't see her grow, develop, or regress as much as other characters like Louis of France and even Petronella, her sister. For Louis especially, I enjoyed how the author managed to really draw out the character descent from shy, pious, and generally pleasant young prince to this cruel, tyrannical, and misogynistic religious zealot. I ended up *really* despising him by the end of the book, but also really interested at how the author developed him that way. With Petronella, Eleaonr's sister, I felt that the author did her a little dirty. Very little is known about Petronella of Aquitaine, as far as I know (and I'm no historian), but I thought her swinging between loving and comforting sister to throwing spoilt tantrums, unfairly blaming Eleanor for everything and going a little mad with her husband, Raoul, seemed to be more modern soap-opera than really what I would probably expect a medieval royal lady to do. But who knows, eh?

The plot does not shy away from some rough realities of medieval royal society and politics, particularly when it came to teenaged marriage and sex, marital rape, and how women were very easily made the scapegoat for every bad news that came with child-bearing. Can't get pregnant after years of marriage? Wife's fault for being barren. Gives birth to a healthy daughter? Wife's fault because “her seed is too strong”. Miscarried a baby boy? Wife's fault because “she displeased God”. All of this was particularly triggering to me, but I guess it's probably just the way of life back in that century, perhaps. I also think the author deliberately wrote it in such an aggravating way to really emphasize the inherent misogyny of medieval societies - whether that's a good or bad thing, I have yet to decide.

Another bit I particularly enjoyed was when Henry of Anjou (later Henry II of England) and Eleanor of Aquitaine first meet: Eleanor is nearing the annulment of her marriage to Louis of France, and both Henry and her know that they are potential marriage partners. This could've been a full-blown romanticised rose-tinted scene where Henry is dumbstruck by how ~beautiful~ and ~elegant~ Eleanor is, and she would in turn also fall head over heels for this well-built handsome young man and it's going to be like he swooped in like a hero and saved her from that disastrous first marriage. In fact, the book doesn't go down that tired path, thank goodness. They certainly are attracted to each other, but also wary at the same time - it's no coincidence that the author chose to have them play chess at their first meeting. Henry never loses his mind over Eleanor, and neither does she him. There are long conversations about Eleanor considering her suitors before deciding that uniting Aquitaine with Anjou and later England would be of the best political advantage to her realm. They both know that the marriage was a political one, the decision was made in a cool and calculated manner, and they both make no pretences about it. It was just a happy bonus that they both were also attracted to each other at the same time. We are also shown that Henry has a mistress *and* a baby son before he marries Eleanor, which is fairly true to life and doesn't shirk away from the very common reality of marital infidelity (mostly on the husband's part) in order to pursue a romanticised beginning of their marriage.

Why did I give it 3/5 stars? While I enjoyed the book quite a lot and appreciated a number of aspects about it, it didn't exactly blow me away and the some anachronistic details in it were a little too jarring for me. Would I continue the series? I'm in two minds about it because I do enjoy the writing style and would want to continue just because of that - but I also happen to sorta kinda know broadly what happens in the rest of Eleanor's life and have a feeling that she might experience the same kinds of frustration in future books as had happened in Book 1, and I'm not really looking forward to reading more of that. Otherwise though, this author's writing style is a great and engaging gateway to finding out more about these fascinating historical figures and I'd definitely check out more of her other books.