For more than 500 years, the story of Joan of Arc has been an inspiration and a mystery. The least likely of heroines, a peasant girl with no education and no prospects, Joan turned herself into the legendary Maid of Orleans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following a voice she knew was God's, she led an army to victory in battle and crowned the king of France, only to be captured by her English enemies and burned at the stake as a heretic, all by the age of 19.Mary Gordon brings Joan to life with a novelist's rich understanding of character. She does more than tell Joan's story, she explores Joan's mystery, the contradictions and secret desires that propelled her from obscurity to glory.