Eanswythe's Bones

A Saint Returns — Or Possesses?

When archaeology PhD student Anna Marcić begins analyzing relics believed to belong to Anglo-Saxon Saint Eanswythe, she anticipates academic insight—not divine intrusion. But when she starts speaking fluent Old English, performing miracles, and drawing the world’s attention as a potential modern-day saint, Anna’s quiet scholarly life shatters.

As viral fame unravels her engagement and fractures her identity, Anna begins to suspect the saint's soul hasn’t just reached across time—it has taken residence. Her search for answers leads her through medieval visions, viral miracles, and the heart of the Church itself. At an island abbey, she hopes to escape the noise. Instead, she finds a calling, a reckoning—and a presence that might never leave.

Is Anna fulfilling a holy mission... or losing herself to a legacy not her own?

Read Eanswythe’s Bones — a haunting, lyrical journey through history, faith, and identity.

Excerpt from the book

Canterbury, Kent, UK, April 2019

Anna Marcić, a promising twenty-year-old archaeology student at the University of Canterbury, hovered anxiously outside the door of Doctor James Thornton’s study. The golden corridor lamps threw her shadow long and two-headed, and she spent a full minute adjusting her shirt cuffs and smoothing her hair, as if her fidgeting might steady the pounding in her chest. Approaching a senior lecturer outside his advertised office hours was hardly done, especially one whose reputation for both academic brilliance and exacting standards inspired a strange mixture of awe and terror in the undergraduates. Yet Anna had in her possession an item she was convinced justified the breach of protocol—a yellowed fold of parchment, thin as skin and equally fragile, sheathed in a battered manila folder clutched against her chest.

The sleeve of the folder, borrowed from the campus archives, was already beginning to disintegrate around the edges. She had wrapped the document in tissue and bubble wrap, but the responsibility of bearing it still seemed a weight in her arms. She took a breath, barely audible, and tapped on the door with the side of her knuckle.

The response came at once, voice sharp and clipped as ever: “Come!”

She entered, the soles of her boots squeaking embarrassingly across the parquet floor. Couldn’t he have put down a rug? she wondered vaguely. Thornton was at his desk, surrounded by the usual debris: stacks of monographs, a fossilised mug of coffee, and the omnipresent spiral-bound notebook in which he scrawled thoughts at a frantic pace. He did not look up immediately, but gestured at the empty chair across from him. Anna sat, knees pressed together, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

When he finally did, Thornton’s eyes, as always, went straight to the artefact. “Good morning, Ms Marcić, isn’t it?” he said, and then, with a flicker of amusement, “What treasure have you unearthed for me today?”

Anna felt her cheeks warm, but pressed on. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you’d find this important. I was quite excited to get my hands on it.” She gently set the folder on the desk between them, careful to keep her fingers clear of the document’s edges.

Thornton plucked his reading glasses from the nest of papers and perched them low on his aquiline nose. “And what exactly is the nature of your discovery?”

She drew a careful breath, rehearsing the words she’d practised all morning. “A letter, sir. Dated 1537.” She hesitated, bracing for the inevitable dismissal. Thornton’s field was early medieval, and anything post-Conquest rarely registered on his radar. “I know that’s beyond your period of interest, but… I thought you’d want to see it.”

To her surprise, he made no gesture to return the folder, but instead drew it closer, handling the parchment with the reverence he reserved for the truly rare. “Where did you find it?” he asked, voice betraying the faintest quiver of curiosity.