I’ve reviewed several books in the past focused on inspiring and powerful women such as Florence Finch, a Filipina American who risked her life to help American prisoners of war in Manila during World War II, and Maryland’s Virginia Hall who was a spy during that same war for the British and the Americans. And then there was the true story of Annie Wilkins, who traveled on horseback across the United States in the 1950s. Finding and sharing these stories is not only eye-opening but uplifting.
Author Bronwen McShea introduces readers to another remarkable woman in “La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France.” The life of Vignerot, the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, has been brought to center stage in this meticulously researched narrative. She has been pulled from the pages of history and given new life, a life that reveals a woman of incredible fortitude, intelligence, devotion, and independence, who rises to prominence and uses her power in amazing ways.
