If there’s one thing I’ve learned from comic books, it’s that everybody has a weakness—something that can totally ruin their day without fail.

For the wolfman it’s a silver bullet.

For Superman it’s Kryptonite.

For me it was a letter.

With one letter, my dad was sent back to Afghanistan to fly Apache helicopters for the U.S. army.

Now all I have are his letters. Ninety-one of them to be exact. I keep them in his old plastic lunchbox—the one with the cool black car on it that says underneath. Apart from my comic books, Dad’s letters are the only things I read more than once. I know which ones to read when I’m down and need a pick-me-up. I know which ones will make me feel like I can conquer the world. I also know exactly where to go when I forget Mom’s birthday. No matter what, each letter always says exactly what I to hear. But what I to hear the most is that my dad is coming home.

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.