No one ever accused the social justice warriors of the French Revolution of moderation. In her Château de Verzat series, author Debra Borchert blends fact with fiction and personalizes the chaos, carnage, and brutality of the period through the stories of memorable heroines. Book 2, Her Own Revolution (4.5 stars from our reviewers), centers on 17-year-old Geneviève, the daughter of public prosecutor Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, who pronounces death sentences for the Committee of Public Slaughter oops Safety.

A determined young woman, Geneviève had been impersonating a man to attend university until her cover was blown by fellow-student Louis de Lagarde, an aristocrat hiding his noble birth. Although she has reason to hate him for ruining her dreams, when she sees his name on a list of the condemned in her father’s office, she embarks on a dangerous scheme to save his life and that of his pregnant mistress, Magdeleine, whom she befriends. All the while, she is planning to leave France and join her lover Henri Detré in America, where he fled with his sister, Joliette de Verzat, whose story was told in Book 1 of the series.

It’s 1793. Some sixty women’s clubs have just been shut down. Olympe de Gouges, feminist author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791) is under arrest and soon to go to the guillotine like so many others who supported the revolution. Geneviève experiences, on a personal level, the trampling of women’s rights by the new republic they helped found. Abuse of power and the twisted logic of tyrants is a central theme of the narrative. Geneviève gets nowhere trying to prick her father’s conscience over flagrant cruelty and injustice. In response to the execution of a six-year-old, he trots out the rationale of every perpetrator in history who just ‘follows orders’ – “If I did not, what would become of me?”

Geneviève’s quest to save innocent lives and find love and happiness spans three years, taking the reader through the Reign of Terror to the Thermidorian Reaction (when Robespierre was executed), and the subsequent stabilization of France under the Directory. With part of her story centered on the Chateau de Verzat in the Loire Valley, Ms. Borchert touches upon the Vendée insurgency, when the conservative rural population of the area protested conscription and extremist anti-Catholic policies. Framed as royalist rebels, they were targeted by Paris for extermination and the military was unleashed on the region, mass-murdering some 200,000 men, women, children, and elderly before political turmoil in Paris put the brakes on their efforts. Interesting historical factoid:  Vladimir Lenin explicitly emulated the French tactics in his suppression of peasant and worker insurrections, such as the Kronstadt Revolt, even referring in his diary to the peasants he drowned in the Volga as his Vendéans.

Her Own Revolution is as much a narrative of the French Revolution as it is the story of the characters caught up in its horror and excess. For some readers, this could make for a grittier read than expected. Geneviève’s love story brings some unexpected twists, however it feels secondary to her coming of age as a self-determining woman and survivor. At times, the plot feels drawn out, with some labored points and repetitive elements. While the timeline is flagged through chapter sub-headers, it felt disjointed, comprising scenes strung together episodically in sequence, rather than evolving through intrinsic continuity.  The same was true for a couple of character arcs that lacked crucial milestones which could account for dramatic change.  Geneviève herself arrives in the story oddly mature. and sexually active outside of marriage at only 17 years old, although still youthfully naïve in some dynamics. I remained invested in her for having the courage to follow her conscience while also exercising common sense about the perils of doing so.

Ms. Borchert’s writing is polished and professional. I’m picky and was frustrated occasionally with overuse of activity fillers when simple dialogue tags would suffice. The author makes adept use of similes to bring her characters to life, but at times lards the goose too much for my liking. Within one scene, for example, Geneviève’s stepmother Ettie “sat like a hen on a nest” and “patted her serviette at the corners of her mouth, like a satisfied cat licking cream from its whiskers” and “sat beaming, waving her fan before her face like a flag.”

Fashion history buffs may question the use of ‘reticule’ – these did not replace pockets in France until after the Revolution drew to a close in 1799. These minor quibbles detract only slightly from a larger tapestry that combines memorable imagery and historical detail to deliver the kind of immersive, satisfying read that speaks of an author’s commitment to research and hard work.

During times when basic human decency is an act of heroism, we all want to believe we could be a Geneviève. Her Own Revolution gives readers the opportunity to step into those shoes vicariously. I highly recommend it!

Regency Chronicle thanks the author, Le Vin Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.  Cover image courtesy of LeVin Press © 2023.  Review by Meredith Thompson © 2023 The Regency Chronicle.