" Pope Joan has all the elements one wants in a historical drama - love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets.
An enthralling, scholarly historical novel." --Rebecca Fraser, Author of The Brontes. "Brings the savage ninth century vividly to life in all its alien richness. . .
But such power always comes at a price .
Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom--wielding a power greater than any woman before or since.
Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics.
As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer.
When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak--and his identity--and enters the monastery of Fulda.
Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn.
Now in this riveting novel, Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.
Peter.
She is the legend that will not die--Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St.
For a thousand years her existence has been denied.
Cross has written an engaging book." -Los Angeles Times Book Review In this international bestseller and basis for the 2009 movie of the same name , Donna Woolfolk Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day. " Pope Joan has all the elements one wants in a historical drama - love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets
