The Captive Queen by Alison Weir
In 1152 a beautiful woman of thirty, attended by a small armed escort, is riding like the wind southwards through what is now France, leaving behind her crown, her two young daughters and a shattered marriage to Louis of France, who had been more like a monk than a king, and certainly not much of a lover. This woman is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and her sole purpose now is to return to her vast duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, a man destined for greatness as King of England. Theirs is a union founded on lust which will create a great empire stretching from the wilds of Scotland to the Pyrenees. It will also create the devil’s brood of Plantagenets – including Richard Cœur de Lion and King John – and the most notoriously vicious marriage in history. The Captive Queen is a novel on the grand scale, where of the making and breaking of nations, is based on Eleanor’s and Henry’s volatile marriage; the passionate conflict between Henry II and Thomas Becket, the king’s closest friend who is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on his orders; between Eleanor and Henry’s formidable mother Matilda; between father and sons, as Henry’s children take up arms against him.

She Wolves by Helen Castor
In her first book since Blood & Roses, Helen Castor makes a triumphant return with her history of the women who ruled England before Elizabeth. Taking us through the monstrous regiment of England’s would-be queen regnants in an insightful and enthralling tale, Castor opens new windows onto the power struggles surrounding Mathilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror; Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II; Isabella of France, the estranged wife of Edward II and Margaret of Anjou, the warrior queen of Henry VI. It is simply a tour de force.