Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Review for Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution


Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution
by 
Allison Pataki  (Foreword)
 ebook, 400 pages
publication: October 1st 2019 by William Morrow & Company


Six bestselling and award-winning authors bring to life a breathtaking epic novel illuminating the hopes, desires, and destinies of princesses and peasants, harlots and wives, fanatics and philosophers—six 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. 

My Thoughts…

If you have ever thought that history was boring you have not read anything by these amazing authors.   They take the French Revolution and turn it into a place that you cannot wait to go.   A place that excites you.  A place that you will learn so much about during a time in history that you will wonder why you ever thought history was not interesting.   

I started reading Ribbons of Scarlet and fell into the story quickly.  I couldn’t put it down.  I snuck away from my daily life to read a few more pages or another chapter just to find out what is going to happen next.    I loved how all the historical authors that I love came together to write such an amazing story.   Each author wrote a different chapter and they came together perfectly.   

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