All For One: A gender-bent take on The Three Musketeers

by Sophia Beaumont

In 1862, the Republic of Quebec has a constitutional monarchy, established ninety years before by Marie Antoinette, who fled France’s revolution. Under the influence of its matriarchal leaders, Quebec is the first country to grant equal rights to all citizens, regardless of gender. Louise Drapeau is willing and eager to take advantage of these rights as she travels from her small town to the capital to join the most elite fighting force in the country, the all-female Queen’s Guard, also known as the Musketeers. She’s barely in the city twenty-four hours, however, when she uncovers a plot to kill the queen, headed by Quebec’s First Minister, Cardinal Lefebvre. With the help of her three new friends—Portia, Athena, and Arabella—Louise must unravel the increasingly complex politics of the palace in order to not only save the queen but to keep neutral Quebec out of the Civil War raging just a few hundred miles south in the United States. Surely this will be enough to get her into the Musketeers—if she can survive.

310 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 18, 2018

About the author

Writer, knitter, kitten lover. Vices include chocolate, tea, staying up too late, and pop music.

Reviews

[Shauna Alderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This feminist spin on “The Three Musketeers” basically explores how the modern woman would be treated by North American society in the 1800s. Much of the plot is the same as the classic book though it takes place in an alternate timeline: Marie Antoinette fled to Quebec after the French Revolution and created her own feminist, immigrant-friendly country.
Louise Drapeau, the main character, longs to be a Musketeer—one of the Queen’s elite, female guards. Along the way, she offends and befriends 3 Musketeers, joins the City Guard as a stepping stone to her goal—and uncovers a plot against Queen Marie III and the American president.
The setting of “All For One” was very detailed and picturesque. It made me want to visit Montreal and discover the buildings mentioned. The description does fall by the wayside in the latter half when Louise and her friends travel to Washington, D.C., but I appreciate the focus being on Montreal since few mainstream books are set there.
My greatest pet-peeve in “All For One” was the lack of romance: I wanted more than blushing, batting eyelashes, and admiring beauty. Louise falls for a very important woman in the story, but there is no real flirting or kissing or anything remotely romantic. This also detracts from the book’s queer representation potential since the actual relationships are not shown. The story sets itself up for a sequel, though, so I hope to see more romance in the next instalment.
Another pet-peeve was the anachronistic language. Although some dated words are used (“Negro”, for example), the majority of the dialogue is modern, even verging on slang sometimes. I’d rather that the book focused on either 1800s speech or modern speech—not a mix of both.
In addition, the characters in the book were archetypal and static, which made me not care for them very much. This caused the plot to lack urgency even though everything happened within the span of a few weeks. That being said, I did like Athena and was genuinely scared for her life at times.
All in all, I think the best part of “All For One” is the interesting premise that Marie Antoinette founded a feminist society in the 1800s. It made me wonder how different the world would be now if women had rights 200 years ago. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an easy read with female characters in predominantly male roles.

[Pam McCratic]

Cute