Entwined Characters

Dancer DivaAzalea loves dancing. It's the number one thing in her world. Except maybe for her sisters, but more on that in a bit.The book opens on the eve of Azalea's first Yuletide ball. Newly co...

Dashing Dance-Pavilion CaretakerNo doubt about it, Keeper is a looker. When the girls first see him, they're totally blown away by how handsome he is: A gentleman stood there, by the table. He was...

Serious SovereignIt's not that the King is no fun, it's that… well… he's not much fun. Azalea notices that "He had a way of frowning that froze the air and made it crack like ice" (1.59). That...

Magical MommyAzalea's mom, the queen of Eathesbury, is very pregnant and very sick when we first meet her in the story. Azalea remembers: "Mother hadn't been taken with a quick, hard illness that s...

Political Player—Perhaps?Mr. Bradford is the son of the former prime minister, Lord Bradford. When Azalea becomes reacquainted with him, she "wondered if he knew that all of Eathesbury expected h...

Azalea really dislikes Fairweller. She thinks of him as "a thundercloud. He never smiled. The only color he wore was black, even his waistcoat and cufflinks, giving the impression of a sleek, overl...

At first glance, Lord Teddie's a "tall, thin young gentleman" (10.30) wearing an "offensively green bow tie" (10.38), who has "curly hair" (19.22) and "hazel eyes" (19.28). Because he's from a neig...

The second-eldest royal princess, born right after Azalea, Bramble is a rambunctious gal who is mischievous and has a sense of humor. Azalea tries to play a prank on her sisters one time, but it do...

The third eldest sister, Clover, is beautiful and kind but has a speech impediment. The way Azalea thinks about it, "She always had difficulty speaking, as though every word took her entire effort"...

Sometimes called Delphi for short, this sister is twelve at the book's start and apparently has a thing for romance: "Of all of them, she read the most romantic stories and drew the fluffiest of ba...

Eve likes to read, and she wears spectacles. She's eleven at the start of the book, and she often goes along with whatever Delphinium is saying, though she's also quite practical. For instance, whe...

We're pairing Flora and Goldenrod together here because they're twins, and they normally do stuff together in the book. Even Azalea thinks of them as a set: "The nine-year-old-twins reminded Azalea...

This younger sister is "red-headed, freckled" (9.6), and she's not always polite or proper. When the girls' dancing slippers are beginning to get worn out, Hollyhock suggests, "What if we danced ba...

Little Ivy has "blond curls" (3.39) and a huge appetite. She's around five years old at the start of the book, and over the course of the year that follows, her appetite remains large enough for pe...

The third-youngest sister, Jessamine is tiny and cute with "bright blue eyes" (15.64). However, she doesn't talk a lot: "Although four, she hardly ever spoke. Hearing her glass-spun voice was a rar...

The second-youngest sister of them all, Kale is still more baby than kid. For one thing, she still screams and bites: "Though only two, Kale had a screaming voice to shame a prima donna. In fact, o...

The girls' mother died giving birth to Lily, so she progresses from zero years old to one year old during the course of the story. At first she just sleeps, eats, and cries, but eventually she star...

Why is his name Mr. Pudding? We don't know. But if this has made you a little bit hungry and you'd like to grab a snack, we'll happily wait for you.We find out early on that he's the Royal Steward....

One of the nobles of Eathesbury, she reminds "Azalea of one of the dolls on Silver Street: pale and perfect and expensive" (2.87). This makes her sound like she's got a pretty exterior but not much...

Mr. Penbrook is a "young, rather moist gentleman" (2.101) who is going to dance the Entwine with Azalea at the end of the Yuletide ball, except the ball gets shut down before that can happen. He co...

This lady is the head cook or something like that of the royal household. She makes the girls cinnamon bread on special occasions and is also responsible for ladling out porridge on normal days.

The doctor who serves the castle, Sir John was involved in caring for Azalea's mother until she died. He also takes care of the girls when they have health problems—like when they dance in boots...

This fellow is the girls' teacher. It doesn't seem like he's all that good at his job, at least in part because of how much he dozes off: "He slept quite a lot. No one ever had the heart to wake hi...

Mr. Hyette arrives at the castle "meticulously dressed in a deep blue suit with an extremely ruffled cravat" (15.1). But though he doesn't look too shabby, he turns out to be something of a jerk. F...

Azalea's second suitor is a scholar from the Delchastrian university, and he certainly seems like a better human being than the first guy, Mr. Hyette: "He arrived with stacks of books, inkwells, an...

This is one of Azalea's suitors, and he helps Azalea "look—unsuccessfully—for the sugar teeth in the cellar" (16.39), so he can't have been all bad.

Another of Azalea's suitors, this one "had actually been interesting to talk to" (16.39) but he doesn't really spark any passion in her.

Yet another suitor, the girls discount him because he "had a wince" (16.43).

The girls laugh over how this suitor "ate more than Ivy!" (16.45)—and given how much Ivy eats, this is really saying something about his ability to put away some food.

Another suitor, and this one was "shorter than all of us" (16.48) according to the girls.

This suitor is "a university fellow […] handsome, well educated, graying at the sides" (16.81). Problem is, he didn't come to court Azalea, he came for Clover, saying: "Your beauty has reached so...

Another of Azalea's suitors, this guy "was a Delchastrian MP, had thick sideburns and a mustache, and was so arrogant he wouldn't even speak to the younger girls" (17.37). Even better, he has all t...

This fellow is another of Azalea's suitors, and he's "a decent sort, but he stormed away the third time they knocked his hat off" (18.2). "They" refers to the girls, who pelted him with snowballs....

Yes, we know, it's another odd name. This fellow has "hairy eyebrows and dark under-eye circles" (22.51), and since he works for Lord Teddie, he comes to the castle bearing Lord Teddie's many propo...

He's the castle gardener. Supposedly Clover spends a lot of time helping him with outdoor tasks, but later we find out that she's actually sneaking off to secretly meet with Fairweller.