First published 1987
Joan hears voices from saints telling her to save France from English occupation. The teenage peasant convinces the court at Chinon that God has chosen her to lead the French army. She dons armor and rallies demoralized soldiers who have watched their country torn apart by war. Joan breaks the English siege at Orleans and pushes toward Paris, her banner flying before thousands of men who now believe in her divine mission. She stands beside Charles VII as he receives the crown at Reims Cathedral, fulfilling the prophecy her voices promised. But the English capture Joan during a raid near Compiegne. They drag her before church officials who declare her voices come from demons, not heaven. The girl who once commanded armies now faces flames in the marketplace at Rouen. This biography follows Joan from her childhood in Domremy through her meteoric rise as France's unlikely savior to her death as a convicted heretic, revealing how one peasant girl changed the course of the Hundred Years' War.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, military-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: chosen-one, historical-figure
Setting: Chinon, Compiegne, Domremy, France, Orleans, Paris, Reims Cathedral, Rouen
Period: Hundred Years' War
Unknown Binding · Random House