Recommended Reading: Anne Thériault’s Queens of Infamy

I’ve been scolding myself for nearly a decade (seriously!) for giving up my Thursday Book Club posts, most of which focused on the bad-ass historical women who inspire my jewelry designs.  The last book-club post was the finale of my three-parter on A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s book about the 14th century, which I posted in April 2010. Wow! Time really flies when you’re thinking about things instead of doing them.

There is a point to my procrastination, however: Those were very involved, time-intensive posts, and this blog isn’t monetized! I can’t seem to write a quick and easy post about a queen any more than I can create a streamlined, simple Queens of Scots snake ring.

I intended to do a plain little snake ring. It turned into this. Click for original post.

In fact, this May, as Game of Thrones was coming to the end, I thought, “Let me write a short thing about how Daenerys is an angry queen, not a mad queen.” But I had to back up a few of my historical parallels so I started getting out books …

… and ended up with a post that WordPress tells me has 92 revisions, and that doesn’t count the numerous versions I did outside of the blogging software.

Therefore, I’m delighted to find that Anne Thériault has a series of long reads called “Queens of Infamy.” She tells some women’s stories that I interpreted in metal but never properly blogged about, including Eleanor of Aquitaine …

My Eleanor necklace.

… and Zenobia (also spelled Xenobia).

My Xenobia ring design.

Anne wrote two posts about Catherine de’ Medici …

My Medici cufflinks.

… and another two posts about Empress Josephine. I’ve dreamed of doing Josephine jewelry for years.

Josephine inspiration in my bookcase.

But, as I’ve said before, custom designs take precedence over designs for my inventory. I’ve only completed jewelry inspired by two of Henry VIII’s six wives — Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves — with Katherine Howard started but not finished. Josephine will probably have to keep waiting.

For now, Anne (Thériault, not Boleyn!) has inspired me to declare my Eleanor lion necklace July’s Jewel of the Month again. Buy the last remaining Eleanor in time for your Leo birthday in August. And don’t forget to check out the Queens of Infamy series!