Eleanor: Crown Jewel of Aquitaine, France, 1136

Author of the best-selling Royal Diaries title, CLEOPATRA VII, Kristiana Gregory now takes readers to twelfth-century France and introduces Eleanor of Aquitaine, who becomes queen at age 15.

Fourteen-year-old Eleanor of Aquitaine lives in a castle in Poitier, France, with her father Count William of Aquitaine (son of William the Conqueror), and her 12-year-old sister Petronilla. Their mother died several years earlier, so their grandmother and ladies-in-waiting raise the girls. Eleanor is extremely intelligent and literate, having been carefully educated by royal tutors. Spinning bores her, as does weaving, sewing, and other housewifery skills expected of her. She would rather be a knight and ride off to war. In fact, in 1136, when her father is invited to help invade Normandy,