hen Sand wakes up alone in a long-abandoned castle, he has no idea how he got there. The stories all said the place was ruined by an earthquake, but that doesn't explain why everything inside is torn in half or smashed to bits. Nothing lives here and nothing grows, except the vicious, thorny bramble that holds Sand prisoner.

When Sand finds the castle's lost heir, Perrotte, they begin putting together the pieces—of stone and iron, of wood and cloth, and of a broken life. But the things Sand fixes work somehow better than they ought to. Is there magic in the mending?

With gorgeous language and breathtaking enchantment, Merrie Haskell's The Castle Behind Thorns tells of the power of memory, story, forgiveness, and the true gifts of craft and imagination.