Thistlefoot

This sweeping epic, steeped in Eastern European mythology, follows in the footsteps of contemporary fairytales such as American Gods and Spinning Silver. It is a first book about the unsettling power of narrative and the hauntings of our ancestors.

From early infancy, the Yaga brothers, Isaac, a traveling street entertainer and con artist, and Bellatine, a teenage carpenter, have been divided by miles of US highways and animosity. However, the siblings are reunited when they find out they are to receive an enigmatic inheritance. To their surprise, their gift is not property or cash, but rather something far stranger: a sentient home with chicken legs.

The Yagas have moved to thistlefoot, as the house is known, from their ancestral home in Russia, but they are not alone. It has been trailed to the coasts of America by a menacing individual only known as the Longshadow Man, who is carrying with him horrific secrets from the past—fire memories that have been buried in Isaac and Bellatine's blood for many generations. The Longshadow Man follows the Yaga siblings and Thistlefoot on their last cross-country tour of their family's traveling theatrical production, leaving damage in their wake as they go. In the end, memory, magic, and legacy must clash and explode in a fierce firefight to decide who gets to recall the past and create a new future.

Thistlefoot is an engrossing contemporary fantasy story by a daring new talent, a magical journey lighted by Jewish myth and ornamented with poetic writing as enticing and sweet as briar berries.