Author's Note: 3 April 2021

Hello and welcome to the beginning of my fanfiction series on Howl's Moving Castle! I truly appreciate you taking the time to read my work and travel on new adventures with Sophie, Howl, and all the wonderful characters in HMC.

I found the amazing world of fanfiction by accident thinking that my favorite movie as a child (Spirited Away) had a sequel, so I clicked on the link and never turned back.

**For anyone who's curious, the story was called Spirited Away 2: Return to the Spirit World by moviefan-92 on fanfiction.net**

**I highly recommend it as well as all of his other fanfics!**

I started Thorns of a Rose when I was 18 and just about to start college. Now I'm graduated and adulting (sorta, I mean I do try) and when COVID hit, so many readers asked that I continue this series.

So, Thorns of a Rose has now become the first book of a trilogy.

I do hope you find some magic in these stories, and as always comments, reviews, and votes are a nice reminder that my words have impacted you in some way.

ALSO!

I updated Books 1 & 2 in the summer of 2020 (what else was I gonna do in a pandemic year, honestly) but will be doing at least 1 more editing process sometime in June/July 2021. I will also publish this series to AO3 around the same time as well.

Without further adieu, I give to you Book 1: Thorns of a Rose.