Thorns and Clover

In a valley where land is law and the surplus are discarded, Elspeth wears the charcoal chevron of the unlanded... a mark of disposability. She is twenty-two, invisible, and measured by the bushels of barley she does not own. Joshua is twenty-three, an apprentice cooper who has spent six years believing that his brutal labour would buy him a workshop, a future, and the girl he promised to marry be...