HISTORY has always fascinated me.

To this day, there is nothing I like to do more than curl up in a cozy room with a mug of hot tea and a book on history. Reading those books, to me, is like reading stories, but of real people who had actively shaped the world we live in today.

My father perhaps was my greatest influence in this regard. He was a professor of world history in the University of San Lohn, and he would always fascinate me and my brother with these glorious tales—bloody battles and mythology and the lives of great historic figures. I grew up shadowing him in his offices and haunting the back of his lecture halls.

However, there remain many areas of history that are not sufficiently explored, and I found one of those fields to be the lives of women. We know so much of the lives and deaths of so many men, but what about those of women? We do not even know much truth about the life of Saint Rosalia, arguably the most famous of all Arcadan Saints. I grew up curious and wanting to know more, often inventing background stories for the women I encountered in history books.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thus, I was drawn to the studies of women’s history in particular once I entered university. I decided to take on the project of writing and sharing the stories of notable women, from around the world. The first to whom I decided to dedicate this endeavor is Saint Aurelia, the Healer’s Saint, who saved uncountable people during the turmoil of the Arcadan Civil War. In the beginning of the book, I have enclosed a letter to a friend, detailing my discovery and the start of my interest towards her.

Throughout my studies for this project, I have noted that many historians have attempted to paint portraits of Saint Aurelia, yet they all show the same thing. They depict a beautiful, genteel woman with the heart of a proper Saint—altruistic and gentle, selfless and noble. Yet that is not the whole picture. I wanted to peel back the mask that men have placed on her face and explore who Aurelia Camwell was before she became the Healer’s Saint, as well as what pushed her to become the Saint she is so well-known as today.

This is the result, after a year of research, interviews, and writing. I hope you get to see the real woman behind the mask, flesh and blood and not just an ideal created by men. This is Aurelia.