Francesca Stanfill's latest novel The Falcon's Eyes (#1,127) is subtitled A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, but I think that's a misnomer. It's really the reason I picked up this book, as I will be visiting France soon. However, Eleanor is really a lesser character in the book. It's really about Isabelle de LaPalisse, an impoverished daughter of a noble family married off to an older, wealthy man for the advantages he can provide her family.
When the book sticks to Isabelle's story, the action moves right along. After her marriage as Isabelle gradually learns her husband's true nature and his obsession with falconry, things become darker for her. Her failure to produce a living heir for Gerard leads to their divorce and Isabelle's banishment to an abbey. Because she can read and write, she is deemed suitable to become a companion to the imprisoned Queen Eleanor in England.
I basically enjoyed the book, but I found that it sagged after Isabelle went to England. At over eight hundred pages, I thought it could be judiciously pruned without harming the flow of the narrative. Things did pick up again towards the end, with a cliff-hanger ending. It's left to the reader to determine what happens to Isabelle. Some readers may not be happy about that, but I thought it was a suitable ending.
It did make me want to visit the Abbey of Fontevraud, where not only Eleanor of Aquitaine, but her second husband, Henry II of England, and her beloved son, Richard the Lionheart, are buried as well. Recommended with reservations.
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