In the novel “Women’s War,” Alexandre Dumas turns to the era of the Fronde—an age of civil wars and feuds between French nobility and royal power. Readers know this period of French history from Dumas père’s brilliant trilogy about the musketeers, “Twenty Years Later.”
The novel tells the dramatic fate of heroes drawn into the whirlpool of political intrigue and the struggle for power. Unexpected plot twists, tension of action, brilliant French wit, elegance of dialogues, images of extraordinary people capable of both noble feelings and intricate treachery—all of this gives the novel a special appeal characteristic of Dumas père’s best works.