Castle

core novel 2000 The Seventh Tower

Record

First published	2000
Original language	EN
Work type	novel
Canon status	core
Reader rating	3.89 (6,901 ratings, collected 2026-09-13)
First-edition ISBN	9780439176835
Internal chronology	2

Synopsis

Castle picks up as Tal and Milla make their way out of the perpetually dark world beneath the Castle and back into the Castle itself, a place that initially seems to offer safety and order after the dangers of the Dark World. Their arrival proves anything but welcoming: Tal is regarded with suspicion by rivals within his own Chosen family, while Milla, as an outsider from the Dark World, faces open hostility from a Castle society built on treating people like her as lesser. As the two navigate corridors thick with political scheming and hidden threats, they must avoid becoming pawns in conspiracies neither of them fully understands simply to survive within walls that were supposed to be safe.

Where it sits

• Universe: The Seventh Tower
• Series: The Seventh Tower core; position 2 of 6 in the series' recorded order
• Author: Garth Nix

Notes

• From the series record (The Seventh Tower): A completed 6-book middle-grade secondary-world fantasy sequence (Scholastic, 2000-2001), distinct from Garth Nix's Old Kingdom and Keys to the Kingdom universes: an unrelated setting split between the underground Castle and the sunlit surface world Aenir/the Veil.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.

• Reading order, within the series The Seventh Tower: position 2 of 6: previous The Fall (2000) · next Aenir (2001)

Sources

• Reference listing: The Seventh Tower
• Rating-platform listing: The Seventh Tower series
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_(novel)

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