ELEANOR'S BROOCH

In the winter of 1193, King Richard the Lionheart lies captive in a foreign land, and England holds its breath. At Fontevraud Abbey, a convent servant named Aveline sweeps frost from the gatehouse steps when a single rider changes everything: Eleanor of Aquitaine, dowager queen and duchess of Aquitaine, has come to rally a fractured realm.What follows is a court drama of ransom, betrayal, and quiet defiance, as Eleanor gathers her lords, outmaneuvers a hostile emperor, and moves coded messages across a kingdom that no longer knows whom to trust. Pulled into the queen's service, Aveline finds herself carrying secrets far beyond the abbey walls, and growing close to Gervais, a squire whose loyalty will be tested on the long road east.Grounded in the real crisis of Richard's imprisonment and Eleanor's fight to bring him home, Eleanor's Brooch is a story of power worn openly and grief carried privately, where a single heirloom becomes the emblem of everything a mother risks for her son, and everything a kingdom asks of the women who hold it together.Eleanor's Brooch is Book One of the Aquitaine saga, continuing in The Banner and the Crown.