A. L. Kucherenko’s interest in the Middle Ages began with a personal challenge to learn about something she disliked. Soon she discovered a more complicated history than what she had seen from afar. After several years of research and travel along Roman roads and waterways now nearly extinct, she developed a profound respect for the resilient people who came before her, and began writing a fictional account of the era to explore the human story omitted from the sparse lines of medieval documents. She gave voice to the people who faced the enemy within and without, to those whose ideals crumbled, to those who would conquer, and those who would not be vanquished. Her last name, acquired in marriage, is Ukrainian, though she is not. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.