The Forever Queen

Like Bernard Cornwell, Hollick mines the richly textured history of Saxon England, producing a striking portrait of an unruly era poised on the threshold of major transformation. Married off to King Aethelred of England at age 13, Emma, daughter of the Duke of Normandy, far exceeds her value as a strategic female pawn, as she pledges her enduring allegiance to her adopted homeland. Despising her weakling husband, she and her children retreat to Normandy when England is invaded by the Danes. However, her all-consuming passion to save her country and retain her crown eventually leads her into the confidence as well as the arms of Cnut, Viking king of England. Wife of two kings, mother to two more, Emma has a remarkable life story providing a suitably dramatic backdrop for this fictional romp throught the fractured political and social landscape of eleventh-century England.