Title: Ribbons of Scarlet
Authors: Laura Kamoie * Kate Quinn * Stephanie Dray *
Sophie Perinot * Heather Webb * E. Knight
Genre: Historical Fiction
About Ribbons of Scarlet:
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.
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Exclusive Excerpt:
National
Convention
Paris,
France
December
1792
“There she is, the
harlot . . .”
“La femme
Roland . . .”
“Traitorous slut . . .”
The whispers followed me
as I made my way across the floor, looking neither right nor left. It was the
first time a woman had been called to address the Convention, and I’d dressed
for the occasion as though it were an honor: a blue gown that foamed about my
feet as I stalked to the bar, a white fichu pinned with my tricolor cockade,
red ribbons twined through my hair. A revolutionary patriot, top to toe. When I
turned to face the questions, I let my eyes travel, bold and confident, to the
high bleacher seats where the radical Jacobins held court.
Before the proceedings
could even begin, some heckler from their ranks called, “How do you answer the
charge of treason, citizeness?”
I replied with calm
contempt. “The charge is ludicrous, and all here know it.”
It was a smear job of the
crudest kind: an unsavory informer reporting he had discovered a London
conspiracy to restore the king, and that my husband and I were complicit. My
husband had already been summoned to account for himself and had perhaps not
done as well as he might: he couldn’t hide his indignation, and he became
flustered when the tone turned sneering. I would not give my questioners a
chance to sneer.
“The informer states
clearly, Citizeness Roland, that you—”
“I did not summon him.” I
spoke briskly, taking the reins before my questioner could bring down the whip
and speed this interrogation to the pace my enemies wanted. This was going to
go at my pace, not theirs. “From my files of letters I can see the man wrote to
me, asking for an interview with Minister Roland. I receive dozens of such
requests every week.”
“You do not deny you
received the man?”
“He paid a brief call,
and from his probing I concluded he was sent to sound us out about some scheme
or other.” I smiled. “Or perhaps I was wrong. I am a woman and not skilled in
these matters.”
The questioner took turns
with his colleagues, trying to turn my words on me, trying to talk me in
circles. As long as I had listened to politicians drone over my dinner table, I
could talk anyone in circles. I shredded their accusations
and stamped the shreds underfoot, feeling the color rise in my cheeks—not
embarrassment, but the fierce heat of pride. Was this what Roland felt when he
addressed the Convention? This rush of power that tingled the fingertips, the
confidence that my words were deploying like obedient soldiers and the crowd
sat in the palm of my hand? Why would anyone who had command of this floor ever
leave it?
Finally, I was excused to
the sound of ringing applause among the deputies, the charge dismissed in full,
the honors of the session formally accorded to me. I looked from Robespierre to
Danton to Marat with a wide bland smile as I glided out, and the smile became a
beam as my husband drew me into the nearest empty hall.
“Thank goodness it’s
over.” His face was creased with relief. “Let me take you home, calm your
nerves.”
“My nerves are calm, and
I can take myself home. You stay, speak with those who need reassuring.”
He kissed my forehead. “I
hated seeing you up there,” he muttered, before rushing back inside.
He’d hardly gone before a
low voice spoke behind me, prickling my skin. “I loved seeing you up there. You
were born to it.”
I turned, smile draining
away. The man who loved me stood feet planted wide, arms folded, dark hair rumpled—he
must have been waiting to catch me alone. “Citizen,” I managed to say, not
daring to put his name through my lips.
“You were brilliant,” he
said quietly. “Brave as a lioness.” A voice of calm power for a man not yet
thirty-three. Six years younger than I, what did that say about me? “They
should have known better than to try to trap you in so crude a snare.”
“That shabby excuse for a
conspiracy might have been crude, but it was real, even if we had no
involvement.” I kept my voice brisk, turning the conversation to safer waters.
“As long as the king lives, there will be plots to restore him. The matter will
have to be dealt with.”
“The king is just a man,
and a small one.”
“With a long shadow.”
We both smiled
involuntarily. It had always been like that with us, the eager cut-and-thrust
of our minds. “If you wish to speak to my husband . . .”
But the man who loved me
took my hand.
“Manon, I honor Roland
and support him always. But I am here for you.”
About Laura Kamoie:
New York
Times and USA TODAY bestseller Laura Kaye is the author of over forty books in
romantic suspense and contemporary and erotic romance and has sold more than
one million books in the U.S. alone. Among her many awards, she won the RT Book
Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense of 2014 for Hard As
You Can. A former college history professor, Laura grew up amid family lore
involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses, cementing her life-long
fascination with storytelling and the supernatural. Laura lives in Maryland
with her husband and two daughters, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake
Bay every day.
Laura also
writes historical fiction under the name Laura Kamoie, also a Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, and USA Today bestseller.
Laura is a
member of the Romance Writers of America, the Maryland Romance
Writers, the Washington Romance Writers, and she is past president of
the RWA-Contemporary Romance Writers.
Connect with Laura Kamoie:
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