Award-winning author, Shelly Puhak, joins us to discuss her wonderful book, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World, about two of the most powerful rulers in European history: Queen Fredegund and Queen Brunhilde.

These two powerful queens commanded armies and fought each other over several decades. Brilliant and tough, they battled not only for supremacy, but survival, using the tools of diplomacy and warfare as needed.  Alliances with popes, queens and kings stabilized their realms.  Combined, their empires extended through Germany, Belgium, France and Spain, and laid the foundations for the the development of European nation-states to come. 

After their deaths, they suffered a familiar fate as other great women of history: their stories were erased or rewritten, and their names were sullied.

Dawn "Sam" Alden and Sean Marlon Newcombe co-host.