The feminine spirit soars as Eleanor of Aquitaine dictates her memoirs. "Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine" reveals the mind of medieval Europe's most exceptional woman recalling her own astonishing odyssey. Why did Eleanor wait until her eighty-first year to dictate her life story? Because "Life was for living. Bloodless recall is better suited to old age!" Betrayals and loyalties; triumphs and trials; stormy marriages to two warring kings, France's Louis VII and England's Henry II: "They left me worn, these men, but they didn't level me." Eleanor recalls wars, intrigues, her travels, troubadours and ruthless diplomacy while confessing her loves, hopes for her children and their fates: "God Almighty, let me die before You gather in another child, or the child of a child, of mine!" To secure her children's wellbeing she even tries threatening God: "I would prefer to relinquish this old body quietly, but be warned! If I must be borne hence cursing Christ, as Henry was, I shall." Eleanor looks back dispassionately, analyzing the Grace she enjoyed as the femme fatale of her day--"This old carcass once embodied the feminine ideal"--and she explains the role her Court of Ladies played in freeing women's minds from an "iron, bearded world." Chicago's Margaret Schmidt calls author Robert Fripp "a rare magician, a 'writer's writer'."