The Mender of Thistlemarsh

She came to sell the shop in a week. Then the cracked bell started to talk.

Wren Calloway has spent eleven years as a clerk in the Royal Registry, and one very public mistake has finished wearing her out. When she inherits her great-aunt's shabby mending shop in the fog-wrapped canal town of Thistlemarsh, she plans to sell it and disappear.

But in Thistlemarsh, a broken thing remembers the feeling of whoever broke it, and Wren, who has never believed she had a gift, can hear them. A ferry bell split by an old quarrel. A kettle afraid of being too loud. A violin hidden in a loft. With a grumbling stove-spirit who wants his buttered toast, a baker who feeds everyone, and a quiet ferryman who minds far more than he says, she begins to mend a town, one small thing at a time.

Then a Crown surveyor arrives with a plan to drain the canal and clear her street by Midwinter, and a letter in her aunt's hand warns her of a Thread no one must tell the Council about.

A warm, slow-burn, closed-door cosy fantasy about found family, gentle magic and finally being allowed to stay. Perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes and The House in the Cerulean Sea.