In the tradition of modern fairytales like American Gods and Spinning Silver comes a sweeping epic rich in Eastern European folklore-a debut novel about the ancestral hauntings that stalk us, and the uncanny power of story.
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. GennaRose Nethercott's The Lumberjack's Dove was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series for 2017. She is also the lyricist behind the narrative song collection Modern Ballads, author of Lianna Fled the Cranberry Bog, and is a Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellow. A born Vermonter, she tours nationally and internationally performing from her works and composing poems-to-order for strangers on an antique typewriter with her team The Traveling Poetry Emporium.
