New in Paperback: Captive Queen by Alison Weir

When Ballantine published Captive Queen last summer, contributing editor Aaron Blanton liked the book quite a lot. “With Captive Queen,” he wrote at the time, “noted historical biographer Alison Weir (The Lady in the Tower, Mistress of the Monarchy) comes full circle, completing a process she started years ago while doing research for the book that would become the biography, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life. In an Author’s Note to Captive Queen, Weir tells us that while she worked on the Aquitaine biography, she first got the idea to write historical fiction.”

The take-it-to-the-beach-sized paperback version will be published tomorrow.

“As always,” Blanton notes, “Weir’s writing is captivating and vivid. She brings, of course, a mastery to her subject through, at least in part, all of that research in putting together her very good biography. But Weir is also a very good storyteller and, as a result, Captive Queen is like a gift to enthusiasts of this character and the period.”