T is for Thistlefoot

I’m doing folklore and book review posts to reach and please a larger audience. Previous years have shown select interest in both and to minimise blogging throughout the year, I’m focusing my efforts on April.

Focusing on an A to Z of my TBR (to be read) list, each letter will have books starting with that letter on my list, a book I’ve read and reviewed (with the review!) and one of my books matching the letter with a link about more info about the book.

I chose the books this year quite randomly from my Goodreads Want to Read page. Some are quite creatively added to letters.

If you’d rather check out my folklore post for today, go here.

You can read reviews for from previous years for this letter here, here and here, and my year-end reviews here, here, here, here and, most recently, here and here.

My TBR

About the Book I’ve Read

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

The Yaga siblings–Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist–have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive a mysterious inheritance, the siblings are reunited–only to discover that their bequest isn’t land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs.

Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home in Russia–but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine’s blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family’s traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide–erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future.

An enchanted adventure illuminated by Jewish myth and adorned with lyrical prose as tantalizing and sweet as briar berries, Thistlefoot is an immersive modern fantasy saga by a bold new talent.

Check it out on Goodreads.

My Review

A heavy read that I interspersed with lighter books when the themes became too much to bear.

On its surface, it’s a magical tale about two siblings who inherit a magic house from their great-grandmother Baba Yaga. Both have magical abilities of their own and the siblings grow closer to each other and learn how to use their magic properly once they are forced to live together – and flee from the one who wishes to destroy their chicken-legged house.

But the story is also about genocide (focused on persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe early 20^th century), eugenics, silencing stories as well as lives lived, and how everything repeats itself even if the memory of it is lost to time.

The parts the house narrated were brutal (Baba Yaga exchanging goods for kittens as her daughter needs new slippers – your imagination can fill in the rest), but they were short vignettes of what the Yaga siblings should probably know if they are to defeat their enemy who uses shadow inciting fear in people to create chaos by having people act on their worst impulses and thus create more fear.

I liked that the siblings made allies (friends?) along the way.

The cat was my favourite character, probably because it knew who and what it was from the start and its loyalty never wavered. A cool theme.

I had a problem with the italics as it messes with my eyes and head, making it difficult to read and enjoy the book. Authors and publishers: please consider the neurodivergent when making decisions about italics so books are accessible to all.

Well-written with lots of Baba Yaga’s scariness thrown in for fun.

Trigger warnings: cursing, blasphemy, genocide, anti-Semitism, infanticide, necromancy, violence, possession, suicide ideation.

My Book

Symphony of Destruction (Irascible Immortals #6)

Remember that you can request all of my books from your local library!

I hope you enjoyed this. For more books I’ve read and reviewed, check out either my Pinterest board about reviews or my Goodreads profile. Alternatively, you can check out my reviews on BookBub. Have you read any of the books? Loved or hated any of them?

You can now support my time in producing book review posts (buying books, reading, writing reviews and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion.

*FYI, my reviews are my honest opinion and if something bothers me, I tell it straight. How else will anything change? My opinions are based on being a voracious reader and book buyer, not an attack on the author.*