In the tradition of modern fairy tales like Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver comes an immersive fantasy saga, a debut novel about estranged siblings who are reunited after receiving a mysterious inheritance. “A wonderfully imaginative, wholly enchanting novel of witness, survival, memory, and family that reads like a fairy tale godfathered by Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton in a wild America alive with wonders and devils alike. Thistlefoot shimmers with magic and mayhem and a thrilling emotional momentum.” —Libba Bray, bestselling author of The Diviners 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 an inheritance, the siblings agree to meet—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 outside Kyiv—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 a sweeping epic rich in Eastern European folklore: a powerful and poignant exploration of healing from multi-generational trauma told by a bold new talent.
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“January LaVoy’s performance of this fantasy audiobook demonstrates why she is an AudioFile Golden Voice narrator…LaVoy breathes life into the characters while weaving the story between the past and the present…Her skill with voices and accents further entices the listener, pulling one deeper into the tale…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
“An excellent dip into the darker side of Eastern European tales.”
— Wall Street Journal“[Thistlefoot] balance[s] fun and solemnity, joy and suffering.”
— NPRBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Gennarose Nethercott, author of her debut novel Thistlefoot, is a writer and folklorist whose projects are all rooted in myth and what our stories reveal about who we are. Her book The Lumberjack’s Dove was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series. She tours nationally and internationally, performing strange tales, sometimes with puppets in tow, and composing poems-to-order for strangers on an antique typewriter with her team, the Traveling Poetry Emporium.
January LaVoy, winner of numerous awards for narration, was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She is an American actress best known for her character Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. In addition to working extensively in narration and television, including roles on Law & Order and All My Children, she has worked on and off Broadway as well as in regional theater.