Jones and her family then moved to England, where she fell in love with London and its colorful history.

These two works were performed by the Honolulu Theatre for Youth in Hawaii. After getting married and while raising two young children, Jones wrote two plays, one set in eighteenth-century Vermont and the other based on Japanese history. After graduating from Bennington College, she spent a few years studying drama in graduate school, which led to her first writing efforts. So begins a passionate love that will span decades and change the course of history.Įllen Jones was born in New York City and raised in a family of history teachers and musicians, who exposed her to a variety of ideas, cultures, and lifestyles. In Eleanor, Henry knows he has found a woman whose hunger for life and glory matches his own. Yet the newly christened Duke of Normandy is thoroughly enraptured by the French queen. Ruled by a raging drive to succeed, Henry vows that he will not be cheated of his rightful place on the English throne. But it is young Henry of Anjou who catches Eleanor’s eye-and sets fire to her heart. Fiercely independent, filled with untapped desire, the woman who would be queen must provide Louis VII, her monkish husband, with heirs. Aquitaine is under the French king’s safekeeping, and Eleanor, the Duke of Aquitaine’s eldest daughter, knows she must wed Prince Louis in order to insure the future of her beloved duchy. With these words, fifteen-year-old Eleanor seals her fate. Set against the turbulent backdrop of twelfth-century Europe, as two countries compete for world dominion, one woman will take her destiny, and the future of a nation, into her own hands.

Beloved Enemy by Ellen Jones