Island author Rachel Bard will read from her third historical novel, “A Reed in the Wind: Joanna Plantagenet, Queen of Sicily,” at 6 p.m. tomorrow, July 30, at the Vashon Bookshop.

The book completes Bard’s Plantagenet Trilogy about three medieval queens who, against great odds, made their way in a man’s world.

“It wasn’t easy, or all pomp and circumstance, being a queen in those days,” Bard said in a press release. “I learned during my research that all three had to deal with challenges and vicissitudes that tested their resilience and fortitude.”

Her research took her to England, France, Spain, and Sicily, in her determination to see every place her heroines lived — castles, cathedrals, monasteries and abbeys. Not to mention the New York Public Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and the British Library.

First in the series was “Queen Without a Country.”

Before becoming hooked on novels about medieval queens, Bard wrote eight nonfiction books, including a history of Navarre, two cookbooks, several travel guides and a pair of journalism textbooks.