The Author
Anna Kensington
She writes the past with blood under its fingernails, and a heart still beating.
Anna Kensington writes history the way it actually happened: messy, human, and unafraid of blood. A lifelong history obsessive with a degree in English Literature and a minor in History, she fell hard for Shakespeare young and never came up for air. What hooks her isn’t the crowns and the pageantry. It’s the strange human textures underneath, the forgotten queens, plague roads, vanished towns, and quiet revolutions buried in dusty margins where no one thought to look.
She writes from the Pacific Northwest, fueled by coffee, folklore, and a research habit that stopped being reasonable years ago. Her stories run on tenderness and hard truth in equal measure: no saints, no villains, only people and the beautiful wreckage they make of one another. She shares her desk, and frequently the top of her head, with her family, three wildly entertaining dogs, and one devoted pigeon who is quite certain she hung the moon.
No saints. No villains. Only people, and the beautiful ruin they make of each other.
The Muses
Every good story needs a muse. Anna has four, and not one of them is subtle about it. Their loyalty, mischief, and soulful eyes turn up in every bond between her characters and the creatures who love them.
Lady Mildred
AKA Millie
A one-eyed marvel. Mischievous, neurotic, and loyal past all reason. Heart of gold, grudges of iron.
Lady Phillipa
AKA Phil
The fur-and-fury inspiration behind Mous. Sworn, eternal enemy of squirrels, locked in a rivalry she has no intention of ever winning gracefully.
Sir Oppenford
AKA Opie
A devoted boy. Devoted, chiefly, to snacks. He’ll insert himself into any scene where food might plausibly appear, which is all of them.
Attila the Hun
AKA Tilly
The real MVP of the writing desk. A Modena pigeon with eyes only for Anna, perfectly content to spend the day perched on a shoulder or the top of her head. Pigeons, it turns out, make astonishingly affectionate and devoted companions, and Tilly is proof.