"A masterful, thrilling portrait of sinister power, magical charisma and gruesome death." —Evening Standard Books of the Year
"Entirely convincing and gripping ...Castor's book is another important way of returning Joan's 'star' to the realm where it belongs, the human one." ―New York Times
"With elegant bravado, Helen Castor hacks through the different accounts, giving blood and sinew to a figure sassier than her saintly legend." ―Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
"Castor writes about the battles with astonishing beauty, making the complicated politics of the time unusually exciting and imbuing history with page-turning momentum." ―Observer
The story of one of the most remarkable women of the medieval world, as you have never read it before.
A French peasant girl who heard voices from God, Joan convinced the royal court of her divine calling and became a teenage warrior, leading an army to victory against the English. Eventually captured and put on trial, she was denounced as a heretic and burned at the stake at the age of just nineteen. Five hundred years later, she was recognised as a saint.
Here, Joan and her world are brought vividly to life by acclaimed historian Helen Castor, taking us to the heart of a tumultuous and bloody moment in the fifteenth century and the short by astonishing life of an extraordinary woman.
