From the courage and beauty of Esther to the reforming spirit of Catherine the Great. here are essays about ten queens by an author who has been called "arguably the best writer of social history for children and adolescents ever". Meltzer, by his own description, is accustomed to presenting history "from the bottom up", but he takes a "top down" approach for these monarchs, revealing the personal and political natures of women who commanded power not because "they happened to marry a king" but because they "ruled in their own right, by themselves. Or if they sat on thrones beside kings, they had as much or more to say about governing than their husbands".

Most were, by today's standards, astonishingly young. Many were physically powerful, accomplished women. Some were schooled to rule, others not. But all were ambitious, passionate, and determined to hold power. All were subject to suspicion and envy. And all, in their successes and failures, ideals and compromises, assumptions and privileges, present interesting contrasts with the lives of women today.