“A Russian war story that lives and breathes from a writer at the peak of his powers.” What if a Siberian Joan of Arc had rescued the White Armies at a critical point of the Russian Civil War in 1919? MAID OF BAIKAL offers an alternative outcome to that war through the intervention of Zhanna Dorokhina, a young woman from the shores of Siberia’s Lake Baikal. Like the historical Maid of Orleans in medieval France, better known as Joan of Arc, Zhanna displays a charisma and military prowess that win her command of an army to defend her homeland against the Bolshevik Terror. MAID OF BAIKAL is a richly imagined speculation on the Russian Civil War that vividly portrays its violence, bitterness, and hardship, while telling the inspirational story of a determined young woman who perseveres in the face of overwhelming obstacles and who dies for her beliefs, not knowing whether her dreams will be realized