Can a woman fight successfully on the front lines?

In Russia, in 1917, when demoralized soldiers were deserting their posts in droves, one enterprising woman recruited an all-female battalion to set an example for the men. It was an experiment that combined the ideal of pure womanhood with the grittiness of trench warfare and the vision of a good death. Rivka’s War tells the story of this battalion—and more—through the eyes of a Jewish girl, daughter of a bootmaker.

Prize-winning author Marilyn Oser learned of the women’s battalion while researching unusual careers of women throughout history. The novel portrays the formation and destruction of this dedicated group, known as the Battalion of Death. “World War I was a disastrous war,” Oser says. “It ended in a disastrous peace, the consequences of which are still being felt today. Its effect on Jewish life at the time has not often been written about, yet in Eastern Europe and in Palestine that effect was profound.” Panoramic in scope, the novel follows 13-year-old Rivka from a shtetl in the Ukraine in the summer of 1914, to Eastern Front battlefields in the grip of revolutionary fervor; from there, across the steppes of war-torn Siberia; and finally to Palestine in the fall of 1918, site of history’s last great cavalry attack and first great air attack.

Marilyn Oser lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and on Long Island. A PhD in language and literature, she has taught English and history and has raised funds for arts, environmental, and community organizations. Author of the novel Playing for Keeps and the blog Streets of Israel, she is a recipient of the University of Michigan’s coveted Avery Hopwood Prize for excellence in writing.