The Women's War - Women's War, Bk 1 Author:Jenna Glass In a high fantasy feminist epic, a revolutionary spell gives women the ability to control their own fertility -- with consequences that rock their patriarchal society to its core. When a nobleman's first duty is to produce a male heir, women have always been treated like possessions and bargaining chips. Now, thanks to a world-altering spell... more », women at last have a bargaining chip of their own.
Alys is the widowed mother of two teenage children, and the disinherited daughter of a king. Her existence has been a carefully proscribed thing, but now she discovers a fierce talent not only for magic, but also for politics. Meanwhile, in a neighboring kingdom, young Ellin finds herself unexpectedly on the throne. Common wisdom holds that she will marry quickly, then quietly surrender rule to her new husband... but Ellin has a very different idea in mind. The tensions tearing at both kingdoms are made abruptly worse, however, when a new source of magic is discovered in what was once uninhabitable desert -- a source which produces not the male-dominated magical elements that the world has known until now, but uniquely female ones. And a world of women are more than ready to seize upon the chances it offers.« less