"The French Revolution comes alive through the eyes of six diverse and
complex women, in the skilled hands of these amazing authors."--Martha
Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls
**A breathtaking, epic novel illuminating the hopes, desires, and
destinies of princesses and peasants, harlots and wives, fanatics and
philosophers--seven unforgettable women whose paths cross during one of
the most tumultuous and transformative events in history: the French
Revolution.
**
Ribbons of Scarlet is a timely story of the power of women to start a
revolution--and change the world.
In late eighteenth-century France, women do not have a place in
politics. But as the tide of revolution rises, women from gilded salons
to the streets of Paris decide otherwise--upending a world order that
has long oppressed them.
Blue-blooded Sophie de Grouchy believes in democracy, education, and
equal rights for women, and marries the only man in Paris who agrees.
Emboldened to fight the injustices of King Louis XVI, Sophie aims to
prove that an educated populace can govern itself--but one of her
students, fruit-seller Louise Audu, is hungrier for bread and vengeance
than learning. When the Bastille falls and Louise leads a women's march
to Versailles, the monarchy is forced to bend, but not without a fight.
The king's pious sister Princess Elisabeth takes a stand to defend her
brother, spirit her family to safety, and restore the old order, even at
the risk of her head.
But when fanatics use the newspapers to twist the revolution's ideals
into a new tyranny, even the women who toppled the monarchy are
threatened by the guillotine. Putting her faith in the pen, brilliant
political wife Manon Roland tries to write a way out of France's
blood-soaked Reign of Terror while pike-bearing Pauline Leon and steely
Charlotte Corday embrace violence as the only way to save the nation.
With justice corrupted by revenge, all the women must make impossible
choices to survive--unless unlikely heroine and courtesan's daughter
Emilie de Sainte-Amaranthe can sway the man who controls France's fate:
the fearsome Robespierre.
