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The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World
by Shelley Puhak
The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule.
Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet, in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport, these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe.
The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a decades-long civil war against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne's empire. Yet after the queens' deaths - one gentle, the other horrific - their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.
In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking at the roots of some of our culture's stubbornest myths about female power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between women can transform the world.
"Poet Puhak delivers a lyrical and astute assessment of the political maneuvers, battlefield strategies, and resilience of medieval queens and rivals Fredegund and Brunhild...[a] deeply fascinating portrait of the early Middle Ages that vigorously reclaims two powerhouse women from obscurity." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Puhak's] brisk narrative rescues two significant figures from misogynist historians who, in perpetuating rumors and scandals, have diminished their significance. Lively, well-researched history focused on powerful women." - Kirkus Reviews
"A compelling read for those with an interest in early medieval European history, Merovingian history, and women in power." - Library Journal
"Engaging…fast-paced and intriguing." - Booklist
"A well-researched and well-told epic history. The Dark Queens brings these courageous, flawed, and ruthless rulers and their distant times back to life." - Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times-bestselling author of Hidden Figures
"History owes more to Brunhild and Fredegund, two queens whose bitter rivalry left a trail of bodies in their wake, than the lies perpetuated by their enemies. So bravo to Shelley Puhak for a remarkable piece of detective work, by turns enlightening and shocking. Anyone who thought that medieval queens spent their time sewing and sighing is in for a surprise." - Amanda Foreman, New York Times-bestselling author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire and The World Made By Women
This information about The Dark Queens was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Shelley Puhak is a critically acclaimed poet and writer whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, Lapham's Quarterly, Teen Vogue, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Her essays have been included in The Best American Travel Writing and selected as Notables in four consecutive editions of The Best American Essays. She is the author of of two books of poetry, most recently Guinevere in Baltimore, winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize. The Dark Queens is her nonfiction debut. She lives in Maryland.
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