Ribbons of Scarlet

Six bestselling and award-winning authors bring to life a breathtaking epic novel illuminating the hopes,desiresand destinies of princesses and peasantsharlots and wivesfanatics and philosophersΓÇösix 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 revolutionΓÇöand change the world. In late eighteenth-century Francewomen do not have a place in politics. But as the tide of revolution riseswomen from gilded salons to the streets of Paris decide otherwiseΓÇöupending a world order that has long oppressed them. Blue-blooded Sophie de Grouchy believes in democracyeducationand equal rights for womenand marries the only man in Paris who agrees. Emboldened to fight the injustices of King Louis XVISophie aims to prove that an educated populace can govern itself–but one of her studentsfruit-seller Louise Auduis hungrier for bread and vengeance than learning. When the Bastille falls and Louise leads a womenΓÇÖs march to Versaillesthe monarchy is forced to bendbut not without a fight. The kingΓÇÖs pious sister Princess Elisabeth takes a stand to defend her brotherspirit her family to safetyand restore the old ordereven at the risk of her head. But when fanatics use the newspapers to twist the revolutionΓÇÖs ideals into a new tyrannyeven the women who toppled the monarchy are threatened by the guillotine. Putting her faith in the penbrilliant political wife Manon Roland tries to write a way out of FranceΓÇÖs 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 revengeall the women must make impossible choices to survive–unless unlikely heroine and courtesanΓÇÖs daughter Emilie de Sainte-Amaranthe can sway the man who controls FranceΓÇÖs fate: the fearsome Robespierre.