Susan Page

The Crown meets The West Wing in this illuminating history that chronicles the largely unknown story of Queen Elizabeth II’s relationship with thirteen American presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Donald J. Trump. With that, she changed the world. No American or foreign leader has met with as many sitting presidents as Queen Elizabeth II. Her Royal Majesty’s seventy-year reign witnessed the highs and lows of the close and crucial alliance between the U.S. and the U.K., from the Suez crisis to Brexit. Following the advice of her mentor, Winston Churchill, to “stay close to the Americans,” Queen Elizabeth played an unexpected role behind the scenes that has never been thoroughly explored. In The Queen and Her Presidents, veteran political reporter Susan Page goes beyond the image of a staid monarch in colorful hats to reveal a skilled strategist, who, like many powerful women, was routinely underestimated and discounted. Page also shows the impact American presidents had on the monarch as she developed from a shy, anxious princess to a powerful and persuasive global leader, and analyzes both the reach and the limits of the “soft power” she wielded. These accounts of the Queen’s deft diplomacy provide candid and telling assessments of her partners in the Oval Office as well. Page shares fascinating true stories and details, including:Going beyond rumors and speculation, the reality of the relationship between Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth – and Trump’s own surprising comments about the monarch whose approval he coveted. The unexpected and genuine connection between the Queen and Barack Obama, and her surprising admission to him, and how each ranked the other as among the most impressive leaders of their lifetimes. Her influential friendship with Ronald Reagan during the Cold War, a bond built on their shared love of horses—and their conflict with Britain’s then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. How Richard Nixon sought the Queen’s help during Watergate—and even wanted to make her a relative. Elizabeth’s hand-in-glove cooperation with John F. Kennedy and the distance from his successor, Lyndon Johnson, the only president who declined to meet with her in office. The almost paternal role played by Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, offering support and advice as the young monarch assumed the crown in the wake of her beloved father’s death. Eye-opening and compelling, featuring an 8-page color photo insert, The Queen and Her Presidents is a remarkable chronicle of a legendary contemporary monarch and the American presidents who helped shape who helped shape her—and were shaped by her.

A “smart, juicy, deeply reported” (Katie Couric) biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time—Barbara Walters—a woman whose personal demons fueled an ambition that broke all the rules and finally gave women a permanent place on the air, written by bestselling author Susan Page.Barbara Walters was a force from the time TV was exploding on the American scene in the 1960s to its waning dominance in a new world of competition from streaming services and social media half a century later. She was not just a groundbreaker for women (Oprah announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters), but also expanded the big TV interview and then dominated the genre. By the end of her career, she had interviewed more of the famous and infamous, from presidents to movie stars to criminals to despots, than any other journalist in history. Then at sixty-seven, past the age of many female broadcasters found themselves involuntarily retired, she pioneered a new form of talk TV called The View. She is on the short list of those who have left the biggest imprints on television news and on our culture, male or female. So, who was the woman behind the legacy? In The Rulebreaker, Susan Page conducts 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her mercurial and famous impresario father attempted suicide. But she never lost the fear of an impending catastrophe, which is what led her to ask for things no woman had ever asked for before, to ignore the rules of misogynistic culture, to outcompete her most ferocious competitors, and to protect her complicated marriages and love life from scrutiny. Page breaks news on every front—from the daring things Walters did to become the woman who reinvented the TV interview to the secrets she kept until her heath. This is the “stunning” (Norah O’Donnell), “brilliantly written” (Andrea Mitchell) account of the woman who knew she had to break all the rules so she could break all the rules about what viewers deserved to know.