Eleanor Herman

New York Times  bestseller Eleanor Herman, author of  Sex with Kings  and  Sex with Presidents,  returns with another work of popular history, exploring the history of misogyny against women with power from Cleopatra to Kamala Harris. Imagine Donald Trump as a woman, called Donna. Would Donna Trump have been viewed as blunt, honest, and refreshing? Would she have won the election? Imagine Hillary Clinton as a man. Howard Clinton says and does the exact same things as Hillary. Would Howard Clinton have been portrayed in a thousand Pinterest images as a witch, stirring a cauldron or riding a broomstick? Would he have been called a bitch on countless T-shirts? Would his thoughtful, circumspect answers to media questions have been seen as inauthenticity, secretiveness, and untrustworthiness? There is a particular kind of rage—let’s call it unadulterated bloodlust—usually reserved for women, especially women in power or vying for it. From the ancient world, through the European Renaissance, up to the most recent U.S. elections, the Misogynist’s Handbook, as Eleanor Herman calls it, has been wielded to put uppity women in their place. In a story that is shocking, eye-opening, and a powerful force for change, Eleanor Herman’s signature wit and humor explores the patterns that have been operating for more than three thousand years—and are still operating today—against powerful women across the globe, including Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and more. Each chapter analyzes a tried-and-true misogynistic method to keep women down, Her Overweening Ambition, Why Doesn’t She Do Something About Her Hair?, The Dangers of Female Hormones, The Alarming Shrillness of Her Voice, The Mysterious Unlikability of Female Candidates, She’s a Bitch and Other Animals, She’s a Witch and Other Monsters, and Her Sexual Depravity. Herman ends the book by looking forward, examining ways to rip up the Misogynist’s Handbook once and for all.

Imagine a time when the gods turn a blind eye to the agony of men, when the last of the hellions roam the plains and evil stirs beyond the edges of the map. A time when cities burn, and in their ashes, empires rise. Alexander, Macedonia’s sixteen-year-old heir, is on the brink of discovering his fated role in conquering the known world but finds himself drawn to a newcomer… Katerina must navigate the dark secrets of court life while hiding her own mission: kill the Queen. But she doesn’t account for her first love… Jacob will go to unthinkable lengths to win Katerina, even if it means having to compete for her heart with Hephaestion, a murderer sheltered by the prince. And far across the sea, Zofia, a Persian princess and Alexander’s unmet betrothed, wants to alter her destiny by seeking the famed and deadly Spirit Eaters. Weaving fantasy with the shocking details of real history, New York Times bestselling author of Sex with Kings Eleanor Herman reimagines the greatest emperor the world has ever known, Alexander the Great, in the first book of the Blood of Gods and Royals series.

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them. Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales. The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken. True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions -- some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins." From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten -- until now.

The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder.

Prince Alexander of Macedon has battled both men and monsters, but his final war will determine his fate…and the future of mankind. While Macedon’s enemies close in from all corners of the earth, Alexander must fulfil one last prophecy that dictates only he—and he alone—can ensure humanity’s survival against the age of the deadly Spirit Eaters. As the threads of fate draw Alexander closer to his destiny, an exiled queen will meet a runaway princess, a young sorceress will set the final path of her heart and generals will choose their final battles. Before the light of victory can shine, enemies must become allies, Death must be tamed and hearts must break. Who will rise and who will die?

Eleanor Herman, the talented author of the New York Times bestselling Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen goes behind the sacred doors of the Catholic Church in Mistress of the Vatican , a scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose remarkable story is ripe with secrets, sex, passion, and ambition. For almost four centuries this astonishing story of a woman’s absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully buried—until now.

In royal courts bristling with testosterone—swashbuckling generals, polished courtiers, and virile cardinals—how did repressed regal ladies find happiness? Anne Boleyn flirted with courtiers; Catherine Howard slept with one. Henry VIII had both of them beheaded. Catherine the Great had her idiot husband murdered and ruled the Russian empire with a long list of sexy young favorites. Marie Antoinette fell in love with the handsome Swedish count Axel Fersen, who tried valiantly to rescue her from the guillotine. Princess Diana gave up her palace bodyguard to enjoy countless love affairs, which tragically led to her early death. In this impeccably researched, scandalously readable follow-up to her New York Times bestseller Sex with Kings, Eleanor Herman reveals the truth about what has historically gone on behind the closed door of the queen's boudoir.

In this fascinating work of popular history, the New York Times bestselling author of Sex with Kings and The Royal Art of Poison uncovers the bedroom secrets of American presidents and explores the surprising ways voters have reacted to their leaders’ sex scandals.While Americans have a reputation for being strait-laced, many of the nation’s leaders have been anything but puritanical. Alexander Hamilton had a steamy affair with a blackmailing prostitute. John F. Kennedy swam nude with female staff in the White House swimming pool. Is it possible the qualities needed to run for president—narcissism, a thirst for power, a desire for importance—go hand in hand with a tendency to sexual misdoing? In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Eleanor Herman revisits some of the sex scandals that have rocked the nation's capital and shocked the public, while asking the provocative questions: does rampant adultery show a lack of character or the stamina needed to run the country? Or perhaps both? While Americans have judged their leaders' affairs harshly compared to other nations, did they mostly just hate being lied to? And do they now clearly care more about issues other than a politician’s sex life? What is sex like with the most powerful man in the world? Is it better than with your average Joe? And when America finally elects a female president, will she, too, have sexual escapades in the Oval Office?

Power, betrayal and desire… It's a dangerous gambit in Queen of Ashes, an ebook companion to the Blood of Gods and Royals series by New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman! If you look away from her face, you will die. This is the warning given to the suitors of Queen Laila of Sharuna, who must compete against one another to win the royal Egyptian's affections. One by one, men cower under her penetrating gaze, and one by one, they are executed. That is, until Laila meets two brothers who do not cower before her: Brehan, noble and courageous…and Riel, intelligent and ambitious. As Laila is tempted by both of them and their differing approaches to magic, she decides that there is one thing she wants more than either brother's affection: power. But when Brehan and Riel turn on each other, Laila must choose where her heart truly lies, before the brothers she loves reduce her kingdom to ash. From the New York Times bestselling author of Legacy of Kings, Queen of Ashes shares the secret history of characters who play an unforgettable role in the Blood of Gods and Royals series.

As the end of an age approaches, gods whisper horrors, families scheme for power, and one woman may hold the secret to a lost legacy. At 19, Ada of Caria yearns to take the Snake Blood throne from her mad older siblings—and seeks the help of a young orphaned girl named Helen, the first True Oracle to have walked the earth in more than three hundred years. Helen may be able to channel the voice of the gods, but she hates her gift, and will do anything to get rid of it—even lie to her best friend, Myrtale, the priestess-princess of Epirus who is destined to marry King Philip II of Macedon even though she loves another. And in the shadows lurks a handsome green-eyed stranger who has more at stake—and more to lose—than anyone could possibly imagine.Amid jealousy and heartbreak, torrid affairs and secret rendezvous, it is spoken by the gods that either Helen or Myrtale —newly named Olympias— will carry the destiny of the known world within her womb. The prequel to LEGACY OF KINGS, VOICE OF GODS traces the intricate web of love and betrayal that led up to the birth of history’s most powerful leader, Alexander the Great.

Reign of Serpents by Eleanor Herman will be available May 29, 2018. Preorder your copy today! A PRINCE WILL RISE TO POWER OR MADNESS, A PRINCESS WILL BECOME A QUEEN... AND BLOOD MAGIC WILL RULE THEM ALL Prince Alexander of Macedon’s mind has been touched by an incomprehensible evil, even as his betrothed travels from afar to unite their kingdoms against a terrible darkness that threatens both realms: the Spirit Eaters. From the distant shores of Illyria to a small deserted island, the deadly consequences of Smoke Blood magic loom and lost civilizations emerge to reveal the existence of a weapon that may do the impossible—kill the last living god. As magic rises and warriors clash, the fate of all Macedon rests in the hands of the unstable prince and those whose loyalty can no longer be trusted.

In Macedon, war rises like smoke, forbidden romance blooms and ancient magic tempered with rage threatens to turn an empire to dust. After winning his first battle, Prince Alexander fights to become the ruler his kingdom demands—but the line between leader and tyrant blurs with each new threat. Meanwhile, Hephaestion, cast aside by Alexander for killing the wrong man, must conceal the devastating secret of a divine prophecy from Katerina even as the two of them are thrust together on a dangerous mission to Egypt. The warrior, Jacob, determined to forget his first love, vows to eradicate the ancient Blood Magics and believes that royal prisoner Cynane holds the key to Macedon’s undoing. And in chains, the Persian princess Zofia still longs to find the Spirit Eaters, but first must grapple with the secrets of her handsome—and deadly—captor.

Nació con la marca de los elegidos, la cicatriz del guerrero. Con trece años, Alejandro ya había sido instruido en las artes y las estrategias militares. Ahora, con dieciséis, bajo el título de príncipe regente, debe derrotar a su primer gran enemigo. Pero la espada no sirve allá donde se extiende el reino de la magia y la brujería. Alejandro, de dieciséis años de edad, está a punto de descubrir que su destino es conquistar el mundo conocido, al mismo tiempo que se siente profundamente fascinado por una recién llegada. Katerina debe navegar por los oscuros secretos de la vida de la corte mientras mantiene oculta su verdadera misión: matar a la reina. Y no es consciente de que ha encontrado su primer amor. Jacob empleará todas sus fuerzas en conseguir a Katerina, aunque para ella tenga que enfrentarse a Hefestión, el protegido del príncipe. Y al otro lado del mar, Zofia, una princesa persa y prometida contra su voluntad a Alejandro, quiere cambiar su destino mediante la búsqueda de los famosos y letales Devoradores de Espíritus.