Gwendolyn

Gwendolyn Ellaswife, Queen of Yesterland, was an adventurous monarch who was the first Edenian to encounter all eight of the supernatural filters designed to keep evildoers out of this purgatorial paradise—and to keep all citizens safely within. Among the many nicknames she garnered over her seventy-six years were Goldilocks, Princess Charming, and the King of Wishful Thinking. In 138, when she married Ella of the Ashes, Gwendolyn established the gynonymic as the surname generation method for all Yesterlandian monarchs going forward.

Born in 114 as Gwendolyn Switzer, the future queen first gained notoriety for the night she spent in the home of three genetically “elevated” bears near the Forest of Fangs. Dubbed Goldilocks by newspapers throughout Eden, everyone wanted to know how she’d survived such an ordeal. But even at 10 years old, she was a tough cookie. She told anyone who asked that the bears weren’t so bad really, and that they’d treated her kindly until the search party arrived to take her home.

As a teenager, she took to disgusing herself as a commoner and working a variety of odd jobs around the capital city of Old Ludditon. This was how she came to meet her future wife. One day, in advance of a Great Royal Ball designed to find her a spouse and satisfy the agenda of The Great Abdication Movement, Gwen disguised herself as a letter carrier. And at manor home just outside the city limits, Gwen met and immediately fell for the maid of the house—a young woman almost exactly her age, and achingly beautiful, who appeared to be suffering under the yoke of a wicked stepmother and two awful stepsisters.

The story of exactly how Gwen and Ella came to be married would be a spoiler for The Blood of Seven Queens, so we’ll leave that unsaid for now. But they did live happily ever after and all that, just as the fairy tales say.

Later in life, thanks to the appearance of blue anvil inside the castle, Gwen and Ella were able to conceive a son together—a son with two mothers and no father. That son, Frederick I, would go on to rule Yesterland after Gwen’s reign was over.