New York Times best-seller Eleanor Herman will dazzle us with her historical insights and literary gems. Eleanor brings her skills as a historian to an exciting new Young Adult series on Alexander the Great at sixteen, the four-book Legacy of Kings: Blood of Gods and Royals.
“History is so fascinating that it never has to be presented in a boring way, even in non-fiction,” she explains. “These were flesh and blood people, just like you and me, facing war and plague, falling in love, living among splendid art and gut-wrenching poverty, evanescent beauty and devastating illnesses. Blending real history with the conversation, action, emotions and fantasy aspects of Legacy of Kings makes the story explosively exciting. I want readers to smell the blood on the battlefield, hear the delicate strumming of a lyre, feel the heat of an ancient Greek summer sun on their faces, see the beauty of the temples and palaces, and taste the dark wine, full of lees, poured from a red-and-black painted Greek vase."
Eleanor calls herself a “Sherlock Holmes of history.” For Legacy, she studied and visited most of the major sites of the ancient world, usually with an archeologist in tow, and read just about everything, ancient and modern, written on the Greek world of 340 B.C.
Major press have lauded Eleanor's non-fiction histories as highly entertaining. The New York Times Book Review wrote that Eleanor writes “enlightening social history that is great fun to read.”
The Boston Globe wrote, “Herman’s writing sparkles off the pages.”
The Washington Post called Eleanor Herman “A lot more fun than Danielle Steel or Dan Brown.”
Her Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry and Revenge chronicles the history of Europe's royal mistresses. Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers and Passionate Politics looks at the love affairs of European queens. Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini, the Secret Female Pope examines the life of a woman who ran the Vatican in the 1640s for her reputed lover, Pope Innocent. Eleanor spent months in Ghana researching a true story of a contemporary royal: King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village. A major motion picture studio is currently developing this book as a film starring Queen Latifah. King Peggy was chosen as the 2013 One Maryland One Book by the Maryland Humanities Council.
Eleanor has hosted shows for The History Channel and the National Geographic Channel on Henry VIII, the ancient Greek city of Aphrodisias, and the Hindenburg. She is an expert commentator on numerous episodes of a national show coming out this fall.
Eleanor lives with her husband, their black lab, and her four very dignified cats in McLean, VA. She is a member of the National Press Club, where she often moderates book events, a queen mother of Cameroon, an elections officer, and a volunteer for the aging in Fairfax County, VA.
We will be joined at this exciting event by our friends from the Princeton Club.
