Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.✔✔✔

I first came across this book in the Cobalt Book Store some fifteen years ago. I didn't purchase it then, but I was intrigued enough to add the title to my list of books to read. I learned recently that it had been re-released and was to be a motion picture, so when I found the book last week in Sundog Books at Seaside, FL, I bought it, and began to read it immediately.

Pope Joan almost certainly existed, despite the efforts of the RC Church to erase any record of her reign. She moved through the church rankings as a man, John Anglicus - she took the name from her brother who was killed in a Norse raid, and her father, who was English. Her story is well-told, historical fiction at its very best, and a quick read besides. I loved the fact that she valued reason above all else, and often expressed - to herself, at least -doubt that God actually existed.

Just today I was at the library, picking up the next wonderful book on my list, and saw that Pope Joan is the Library Book Club's choice for February 2011, so I must remember to attend that meeting! I wonder how both RCs and Baptists will react to this story: the Catholics for the fact that Joan existed at all, and the Baptists for her doubts. Worth finding out!!