Excerpt from Joan of Arc by Helen Castor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The result is a history of Joan of Arc that is a little different from the one we all know: a tale in which Joan herself doesn't appear for the first fourteen years, and one in which we learn about her family and childhood at the end of the story, not the beginning. Many historians have taken, and will undoubtedly take, a different view of how best to use these remarkable sources for the life of a truly remarkable woman. But for me, this was the only way to understand Joan within her own world – the combination of character and circumstance, of religious faith and political machination, that made her a unique exception to the rules that governed the lives of other women.

It is an extraordinary story; and, at the end of it, her star still shines.

From Joan of Arc by Helen Castor Copyright © 2015 by Helen Castor. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.