The Crusade

In 1592, Basque novice Catalina de Erauso slips out of her convent, hacks off her hair and steals a sword. Reborn as “Don Alonso”, she duels across Spain, ships to the Americas, outwits witch-hunters and even marches into the Vatican to demand papal leave to live as a man. Every mile swells the price on her head—and the legend that shields her. The Crusade unleashes a real seventeenth-century icon who gambles, fights and loves on her own terms, shattering borders of gender, faith and empire in a breath-quick, feminist odyssey.