Especially in dark times, the real magic is in how we see the world
Written for readers who aren’t sure how to bridge the gap between their love of dystopian fiction and their desire for a little magical hope, this book traverses that divide with keen clarity.
When the old world shattered, London’s nine broken sectors became a city of silence. Among the ruins is Aly, a fifteen-year-old who gathers fragments of glass and shiny things, believing beauty can still be found. She does not yet know that her collecting will one day fulfil the prophecy whispered by the mysterious Jin Toma—when the Truth in Stone will be revealed.
Watching over her is Mara, whose guarded heart resists hope, and Kade, a brash survivor whose humour unsettles Mara as much as it steadies those around her. A group of warm, kind people form a new kind of family, each bringing their own beauty. Then Jonah, a mute boy, climbs out of a sinkhole in the middle of the city, and he becomes Aly’s best friend and accomplice in her mission to ‘make the world beautiful again.’
With lyrical prose and immersive worldbuilding, All the Broken Things is about the magic of hope, found family, and the joy that a rust-coloured dog brings.
Aly refuses to accept the broken world. She scavenges feathers, glass, buttons, and other bright scraps, naming each treasure and holding fast to the idea that beauty still matters. When she discovers a mute boy named Jonah, her fragments become more than keepsakes. They begin to form a mosaic of meaning that no one, not even Aly, can yet see.
Around them move other lives: Sister Luma, carrying faith into the shadows; Evie, whose gift with herbs borders on the uncanny; and Samuel, a fading writer who insists that every story is really about love. And when Kade arrives on horseback with medicine and a grin, his irreverent humour cracks the silence Mara has built around herself.
But it is Jin Toma’s prophecy that threads these lives together: the girl who gathers fragments will one day reveal the Truth in Stone. In Aly’s hands, what begins as shards becomes something greater—a fallen city’s hidden legacy rising from ruin.
