Subtitled "a novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine" the book covers the period from August 1151 when Eleanor first met her future husband, Henry III of England, and May of 1152 when she married him. This book just never gripped me, even if it was good enough to keep me reading to the end. Some things I did appreciate in it--particularly with how Holland took as she put it in her afterward "the scraps" of what we know of Eleanor and from it fashions a plot surrounding a secret pregnancy--and history gives her just the window to do it, although I found aspects of the plot about how she hid the pregnancy ludicrous. I also was taken with how Holland depicts the intrigue of the French court. Eleanor is never free--not simply because as the queen she's guarded every minute, but because of spies within her own household and courtiers and clergy plotting against her.
The prose, if spare, is mostly decent, and with good sensory detail. The biggest style problem I had was whenever we get a love scene we get graceless romance aisle. Within the first 50 pages I noted these euphemisms used for a certain part of Henry's anatomy: lance, manly stalk, prod, manhood, sword. I empathize with the dilemma of a novelist trying to negotiate the dangers of too clinical on one side or too pornographic on the other--but if you're then going to use euphemism, I'd rather the author pick just one (and stay away from anything so risible as "manly stalk.") Nor was that the only problem with Holland's love scenes.
I also had a problem with sympathizing with Holland's characters. In this novel Eleanor and Henry start a physical relationship within days of meeting each other even though she's still married to King Louis of France. Louis is depicted as weak, pathetic, but it's not as if he's cruel to Eleanor, and she has two daughters by him. Eleanor and Henry seem motivated by lust--for each other, but mostly fueled by the possibility of carving up Louis' France and creating out of their lands an Angevin empire. Besides this couple, the narrative is shared with Petronilla, Eleanor's younger sister, who is sympathetic but none too interesting, and lady-in-waiting Claire, a young girl of doubtful loyalty who gets involved with a troubadour.
Finally, when I think of the historical novels that have stuck with me, they've either illuminated for me the alien mindset of past centuries or made me feel vividly what it was like to live then or follow a specific pursuit, or made me laugh out loud or feel for their characters. Holland did none of those things. So in short, this is a fairly well-written, well-researched historical novel, but not a standout. It made me more want to look up Sharon Kay Penman's novels featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine than ever read anything else by Holland.
