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 The long-awaited sequel to Sharon
Kay Penman's acclaimed novel When Christ and His Saints Slept,
Time and Chance recounts the tempestuous marriage of Eleanor of
Aquitaine and Henry II in a magnificent story of love, power, ambition-and
betrayal.
He was nineteen when they married, she eleven years his senior, newly
divorced from the King of France. She was beautiful, headstrong,
intelligent, and rich. It was said he was Fortune's favorite, but he said a
man makes his own luck. Within two years, Henry had made his, winning the
throne of England and exercising extraordinary statecraft skills to control
his unruly barons, expand his own powers, and restore peace to a land long
torn by banditry and bloodshed. Only in one instance did Henry err:
Elevating his good friend and confidant Thomas Becket to be Archbishop of
Canterbury, he thought to gain control over the Church itself. But the once
worldly Becket suddenly discovered God, and their alliance withered in the
heat of his newfound zeal. What Becket saw as a holy mission-to protect the
Church against State encroachments-Henry saw as arrant betrayal, and they
were launched inevitably on the road to murder.
Rich in character and color, true to the historical details, sensitive to
the complex emotions of these men and women, Time and Chance
recreates their story with all the drama, pain, and passion of the moment.
It is Penman at her best.
Published
March 2002
by
Putnam
hardcover / $27.95
ISBN:
0399147853
paperback / $15.95
ISBN:
0345396723
ISBN13:
9780345396723
Published by
Ballantine Books
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