Review: Her Own Revolution by Debra Borchert

An empowering and dramatic story of romance in deeply troubled times, Her Own Revolution by Debra Borchert is an authentic period novel with a fearless female lead. From the novel’s bold opening line to the heartwarming final proposal, this book is carefully crafted by a master of relationships and emotional tension, for a tightly written, heart-pounding twister of a tale.

Genevieve is a precocious and daring young protagonist who refuses to bow to the gender norms of the time, hiding her gender in order to seek out her education. Terrified at being found out, she has a single person to confide in, Henri, but his political and philosophical views drive him out of France, across the ocean, and she is left to fight her fierce battle alone.

Her father is a staunch supporter of Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite, condemning hundreds of Royalists to the guillotine. Genevieve’s hard-won position working with her father grants her more power than many women of the age, leading her onto the slippery slope of espionage, and discreetly trying to save innocent lives from a bloodthirsty fate. Learning to fluently speak the language of deception, and tap the implicit power that feminine wiles provide, she maneuvers the dangerous landscape of the French Revolution with grace, courage, and sheer audacity.

The main twist of the novel – though there are quite a few – takes the form of Genevieve’s stubborn resistance to the unexpected longings of her heart, which still belongs to someone who fell to the guillotine. Torn between one man who fled and another whom she daringly saved, Genevieve embarks on a spiraling quest into quiet heroism, driven by love and the pursuit of justice, resulting in a deeply passionate story of a revolution that is both external and internal.

Peppered with historical asides and contextual details that make the prose feel immersive, it is easy to get swept along in this dialogue-driven, etiquette-laced thriller. It may take a few hundred pages, but Genevieve finally realizes what readers have known before her, a timely and perennial message: “All this time I had been dressing as a man to feel powerful, when all along, I was powerful. I was a powerful woman. And I was proud.” Although she has many conflicts throughout the novel, her final battle with Martin is particularly satisfying – the ultimate rejection of patriarchy and oppression, a symbolic victory over everything she has learned to push back against.

On a technical level, there are the occasional slips in anachronistic language and awkward exchanges of dialogue, and the self-reflective questions of the narrator can sometimes feel like cut corners in the storytelling. However, as a whole, Genevieve works as a stunning lens to view this story, and the writing is generally sharp and clean, without common or hackneyed language; each description feels fresh and visceral, even the simplest ones: “Guilt sat in my chest, thick like mud.”

Thematically rich in terms of challenging binaries, along with being suspenseful, romantic, and unpredictable throughout, Her Own Revolution is a deftly crafted and inspiring portrait of the past.