I can’t quite remember how I found this book, but it was in my overdrive wishlist and I was looking for a fantasy to read so I decided to pick it. What I found was a French-inspired fantasy full of friendship and learning how to put broken things back together.

The Castle Behind Thorns starts when Alexander wakes up in a fireplace. He soon realises that he’s in the castle which has been torn into two and hidden behind thorns for years. Everything in this castle is thorn but in order to survive, he starts to use his blacksmithing skills to mend things. One day, the lady Perotte wakes up and the two of them have to figure out the secrets behind the castle and Lady Perotte’s death in order to find out how to escape.

I liked this book from the first chapter. Sand’s concern with staying alive is realistic and the way he ends up waking Perotte is pretty believable too. Basically, the first few chapters are about how he makes the castle inhabitable, and although that means the mystery of the castle takes a while to start, I actually really enjoyed reading it. It gave me a good idea of what Sand was like as a person and I knew that I wanted him to be able to escape.

And of course, I also enjoyed Perotte as a character. One thing that struck me was her crankiness just after she came back to life – like how she insisted Sand address her as “my lady”. It made perfect sense to me that you won’t be in the best of moods if you just find that you’re no longer dead. She wasn’t immediately likeable, but she wasn’t off-putting and I really enjoyed reading about how her friendship with Sand developed and finding out more about how she did.

Speaking of their friendship, because this book is MG (at least it feels like it, with Perotte only being thirteen), the friendship between the two mostly stays as a friendship. As someone who’s not a huge fan of romance and doesn’t like love triangles, a straightforward story of two children learning to be friends was refreshing.

I also really enjoyed all the fairy-tale elements in this story. A story with a noble-born girl who wakes after a long time and a castle with thorns surrounding it is obviously inspired by Sleeping Beauty, and I enjoyed all the references to the fairytale. It hits enough tropes while being different enough to hold my interest. I also really enjoyed how the history of Perotte’s family and the castle was woven into the mystery of the thorns and her coming back to life – I found it really hard to put the book down because of it!

Overall, I found this to be a highly enjoyable story! Although it’s quite clearly middle-grade, it’s complex enough for older readers to enjoy. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in the book and the way it develops the friendship between Sand and Perotte, making it a key part of the plot.