(full disclosure, I received an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review. And boy, are y’all gonna get an honest review, an honestly raving one!)
Isaac and Bellatine Yaga are estranged siblings, from a long line of master puppeteers. When we first meet them, Isaac is living by his wits on the streets of New Orleans, with the help of his questionable yet firmly held sense of morals and his odd near-shapeshifting gift. His sister is in hiding in a woodworking shop in rural Vermont; her hands can bring the inanimate to life, in more than a metaphorical sense, and her power terrifies her.
Brother and sister reunite over a bizarre inheritance from a long-gone ancestress, a weird and quirky little house…which happens to have chicken legs. Isaac and Bella make an uneasy pact, to take their parents’ puppet show on the road one last time and use the house they call Thistlefoot as a drawing card. What they don’t know is that someone, or something, is searching for it and them: something that will stop at nothing, use and destroy anyone in its way, to destroy the heritage of Baba Yaga.
I won’t go into much more detail lest I spoil all the amazing twists and turns of the tale or of the richly textured world in which it unfolds. It’s a verse hauntingly true to life, with side mentions that range from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, to Emmett Till and Columbine High School, and at the same time tinged with magic that floats in the air between every line. The language is lyrical, yet brutally frank when it needs to be.
The bickering siblings and the friends and foes around them are drawn with great care. They feel like real people, with all the contradictions that that implies, but true to their own reflections. The chase builds throughout the book to an explosive climax, and the discovery by both Bella and Isaac that they don’t have to run from their enemy or themselves.
Thistlefoot is unique unto itself, and an addictive joy to read. The flow of it does put me in mind of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, so if you like that, I think you will love this. Highly recommend!

Thistlefoot takes the Russian legend of Baba Yaga, and turns that story into one of Jewish origins. Issac and Bellatine Yaga are siblings who inherit the legendary house of Baba Yaga, the house on chicken legs, from their great great grandmother, who kept the house in storage in the Ukraine for seventy years and bequeathed it to the youngest Yagas. The siblings grew up in a household that gave puppet shows, and the pair decides to take the house on a tour and recreate the puppet shows they gave in their childhood. Both Isaac and Bellatine have their issues, and as the book progresses, we learn their backstories, and also that of the house and the puppets. They are also pursued by the Longshadow Man, a mysterious figure who followed the house from Ukraine, and who seems bent on the destruction of Yaga’s house, for reasons unknown.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an e-arc of this novel.*

Siblings of a dysfunctional theatrical family, Bellatine and Isaac Yagga receive a strange inheritance from their great grandmother, Baba Yaga. The huge packing crate, that has traveled all the way from Kyiv, contains a house! The odd little cottage with barbed wire on the balcony has chicken legs supporting it, instead of a foundation. The chicken legs are alive and can propel the house forward or backward! Bellatine, a skilled carpenter, falls in love with the place, as a treasured heirloom to lovingly restore. Isaac, the son of puppeteers, sees it as a traveling theater and a potential money maker. Somewhere in the dark, twisted world of memory and revenge, someone powerful sees the little house as a threat to be eliminated forever.

I came looking for a fairytale and found a harsh and violent lesson in Russian history, as well. This novel holds so much more than it may first appear to, tucked between the covers of a caricature of the cottage named Thistlefoot.. The writing is sharp and fresh, the narrative haunting and evocative. Quotable lines abound, peppering the pages with ageless wisdom. The pace never flags; each chapter flies by. The characters are finely drawn, and you care for them very much. The saga of the Yaga family is not one soon forgotten. The memory of this book will remain forever, constantly distracting the reader's mind, just as it should.

One sentence in and I knew I was in for a delightfully weird and enchanting time. I'm so happy the rest of the book lived up to that expectation. Nethercott's vivid and rich prose drew me into her wonderfully creepy and unique world. This is a true modern fairy tale, with the darkness, trauma and hope that define the oldest human stories. It is a love letter to the power of stories and an ode to why we tell them. "Kill the story, and you kill the culture." Nethercott doesn't shy away from showing the darkness of humanity and effects of trauma that lasts for generations, but she doesn't leave the reader without hope. She beautifully argues that remembering and living can happen together, in fact remembering by telling your people's story is a necessary part of living. I rarely read a book that is both delightful and moving. Thistlefoot did both.

Any fan of Neil Gaiman will love Thistlefoot. Final note. This book has my favorite pet sidekick name ever.

This was nothing short of extraordinary. The writing was breathtaking, I can't even tell you how many passages I highlighted. It's a story that contains darkness and piercing sorrow, but ultimately I found it really hopeful. I was amazed by the author's storytelling style. The twists and turns in this unfurl in a way that feels both inevitable and constantly surprising.

I found this to be nearly perfect. There were a few occasions when sudden POV switches during chapters confused me, and I did wish for a bit more from the ending. In one way the ending felt exactly right, but I cared so much for all the characters that I did wish I'd gotten more of a look at how things ended up for all of them. But mostly I was just sad to say goodbye to them.

This is absolutely in my top ten books so far this year. Even if you tend to shy away from darker books, as I usually do, I highly recommend checking this out, though definitely do check content warnings. It's just such a weird and wonderful and beautiful book. I'd especially recommend it to fans of Naomi Novik and Emily Lloyd Jones. But really I kind of want to tell everyone I know to read it, it's that ridiculously good. And yes, it's queer!

Thank you netgalley for providing the free ARC in return for an honest review.

So much magic here! Special siblings Isaac and Bellatine Yaga inherit a strange house from an ancestor they never met nor know much about, Baba Yaga. This small house has chicken legs and can move around. Immediately, Bellatine feels a connection and wants to make it her home. Isaac insists she buy out his part of the house using the money they make by taking the retired family puppet show, The Drowning Fool, on the road. Soon they learn a spooky man who causes death and destruction in his wake wants the house, and the siblings must come to terms that their gifts are not just strange powers they were born with, but also inherited from the pain of their Russian ancestry. Such a unique story that builds upon Russian folklore and pogrom history.

“My name is Baba Yaga. You will not forget me.”

Reading this book made me realize this might be the first book I've read that is based on myths from my culture. Baba Yaga is a fascinating character that we've all heard stories about, but I rarely see any new stories involving her. I'm glad that's changed.

This is a great fantasy that follows two siblings that are descended from Baba Yaga. Nothing about them really makes sense, but it makes sense in the weird whimsical world they're in. It's really well written and often reminded me of Neil Gaiman's writing. This does have it's dark moments and I'd consider it horror as much as fantasy.

Thank you netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A multi-layered folk tale set in alternate modern times, the characters in this story stem from Baba Yaga traditions and eerie creatures with strange powers.

Siblings Isaac and Bellatine inherit a strange house from one of their ancestors 70 years after her death. They themselves have abilities that have both plagued and helped them in their lives. If you are a fan of the paranormal and you enjoy lots of small folk tales interspersed with an overarching storyline, you will love this well-written book.

For me, I think I just didn't enjoy getting into it as much, and it was so different from the way it was marketed, so I dropped it to 3 stars.

Yaga siblings Bellatine and Isaac inherit a house that moves around on giant chicken legs from their ancestor, Baba Yaga. As they go on tour with the house, Thistlefoot, they put on a traveling puppet show and reconnect after being estranged as teenagers. They learn more about their family’s traumatic history and their unique and mysterious powers as they are pursued by the sinister Longshadow Man.

The synopsis of the plot doesn’t do this book justice. It deals with heavy topics like ancestral trauma and death but in a fairy tale style that makes it easier to digest while still packing a punch. Only after I finished this lyrical book did I read that the author is a poet, but it immediately made total sense. I am the kind of reader that struggles to create images in my head while I read books (pretty helpful when they turn books into movies), but the imagery in this one ignited my brain. I haven’t had a reading experience like this one since I read Night Circus. Perfection.

Thistlefoot is a captivating fairy tale with beautiful characters. This is a long, slow burn of a story that is intriguing.

**Full review to be posted closer to publication!**

This was such a unique and unexpected read that was endlessly whimsical and creative. I really never knew what direction this story was going to go at any time and could sense the imagination dripping from each page. The story started out really strong, then had a bit of an odd point in the beginning where I wasn't quite sure what to expect or how it was going to continue, but it eventually picked back up and I found myself having a hard time putting it down. I loved the House as a character and daresay it might have been my favorite, but I also really loved meeting all the other characters that pop up in this story. Nethercott truly has a gift with writing a complex, compelling, and beautiful story. I cannot wait to check out more work from GennaRose Nethercott in the future!

This is a story about the Yaga siblings - Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist, who were estranged, but then receive a call that they have inherited something and need to meet to retrieve it. They were both hoping for money, or land, or something they could take with them and be on their merry way, but instead, they discover they inherited a strange little house on chicken legs. Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home outside Kyiv. Unfortunately, something else has also arrived along with the house and it starts following after them, trying to catch them so that it can destroy the house. The thing is called Longshadow Man and he is leaving destruction in his wake, all in his pursuit of Thistlefoot. 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.
This book was delightful. It was part folk tale, part fantasy, and just a tiny dash of horror. The Longshadow Man was creepy, and some of the things he did made me shudder with a mixture of delight and horror. There are creepy puppets a golem, and we all have heard of Baba Yaga, even if we aren't completely familiar with her story. This book will transport you so you feel like you are in watching it all unfold, and it is impossible to put it down. I definitely recommend this one!

Oh man - everyone needs to read this. This is a folktale done right. This story is told so beautifully, with so many perfect voices, I don't think I've read anything that does it this well. Thistlefoot is so much more than a tale of siblings fighting an enemy with a house that walks on legs. This is a folktale in the purest form: it tells how stories keep history alive. That the purest way to honor the past is to tell it's story, to share the horrors in a way that will be remembered and shared. That erasing the past happens best when there is no one to tell it's story. You will feel this story settle into your bones before it's over and you'll never look at a another story the same way. The power they hold and the truths they tell - it'll matter so much more.

**Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the eARC**

DNF @ 32%

This is a solid 4 star read but I cannot for the life of me get through this. I spend an average of two days on a book this length, but have spent five days to read 30%. The writing is poetic with a ton of beautiful quotes. If you like slow progressing literature and folklore inspired books, this would be a perfect read.

I might try reading this again some day, but for now I need to put it down unfortunately. If it was more fast paced, this would have been one of my new favourite books.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending this arc.

I just finished Thistlefoot and I'm honestly not sure what to write that hasn't already been written about this book but I'll try. It was a beautiful, magical read and I'm sad I finished it but I think it's one of those books you can re-read and discover something new.

However before we get into the review a few trigger warnings: This book is heavily influenced by Jewish stories and the experience of Jewish people in Europe (but specifically Eastern Europe/Russia) during the pogroms. It is horrifying and slightly graphic but an integral part of the overall story so please read with caution.

Thistlefoot follows the Yaga siblings Isaac and Bellatine as they come into a strange inheritance: a house on chicken legs. The siblings are estranged and retired puppet-folk but the house (named Thistlefoot) brings them back together. Isaac, Bellatine, their sentient chicken house, a far too smart black cat, and an assortment of puppets set off on a journey across the United States performing a puppet show they learned from their alive-but-absentee parents. Along the way they cross paths with an unsettling person-thing called the Longshadow man, as well as a ragtag bus of friends who may or may not be a traveling band. Interspersed with the Yaga siblings tale are flashbacks to their ancestor Baba Yaga narrated by Thistlefoot itself.

The story is steeped in magic and Eastern European folklore but the ending brings the mystical and the real all together for a satisfying but shocking conclusion. I'm a fan of re-told fairytales and folklore inspired books and I read a fair amount of them so I feel pretty familiar with the genre. This book kept me guessing the entire read and I loved it. I highly highly recommend this is a new favorite for sure.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free arc of this book.

A beautifully rich book that gets you thinking about family and memory. The story is mythical but infused with historical references. A book that will stay with me for a long time.

Beautifully written. There is so much to love about this book! I love how the story is told from multiple perspectives. By the end, I felt like I understood both Bellarine and Isaac, but also Baba Yaga and Thislefoot.

The story also artfully takes on darker things, like pogroms and the attempt to eradicate Jews from Russia in the early 1900s. I don’t want to say too much a risk spoiling anything from the storyline, but it also does a really nice job of articulating that, even after tragedy, memories cannot be erased.

Thislefoot is a lovely combination of good storytelling and valuable takeaways, including the importance and manifestation of memories as well as the joys of relationships between families and friends.

Stories have always had a unique kind of power. Folktales in particular are some of the strongest, comfortably occupying the space between creating new worlds and allowing us a deeper understanding of our own. GennaRose Nethercott's Thistlefoot takes this exploration to new and fantastical heights with her tale of two siblings who must uncover the mysteries of their past to better understand the unusual family heirloom recently come into their possession.

Through alternating perspectives, Thistlefoot delves the depths of the difference between a memory and a story, and the importance of the space where the two intersect. Bellatine and Isaac Yaga don't know much about their family history. Somewhere along the line between potentially-mystical, voluntarily isolating village crone and adoring mother, their grandmother never held the oral tradition of passing on family tales. But there is…something else that connects them. Strange abilities, tense relationships, a family puppet show business…and a house that stands on chicken legs and takes every opportunity to run.

One part lush fairy tale, one part exploration on the meaning of storytelling, Thistlefoot doesn't just wonder what it would be like if walls could talk - it presents a world in which the walls, floors, and windows all have a story to whisper into any willing ear. A world where memory manifests into magic, and the consequences of our histories follow us until we make time to listen and learn from them. A world in which belief is everything.

Thistlefoot is the kind of lived-in, fantastical tale that all fairy tales strive to be: a way to honor history otherwise hard to talk about, unafraid to approach the darkness while centering itself around the vitality of light. There is aching here, and longing, pain that wrenches the heart. But it is tinged and balanced with joy. Long before we know the Yaga family's tragedy, we are given infinite windows into the things that make them unique and vibrant individuals. We learn their fears alongside the things that bring them the most comfort. And Thistlefoot itself, the chicken-legged house? It welcomes us with equal parts warning and warmth, shaping its origins around what it believes we need to hear, until we are ready for the truest version. Even when the secrets whispering its walls are laid bare, it still desires to comfort us with the knowledge it has to impart.

Nethercott's novel is also something even more important than a story about stories - it is a story about the preservation and passage of cultural history. The Jewish heart beating at the center of Thistlefoot is at once a comforting and vital presence. That it tells the story of a tragedy without letting itself become wholly tragic is a joy. That it knows the importance of honoring memory while constantly, ceaselessly celebrating life is the kind of refreshing comfort folk and fairy tales are and should be made for, even at their darkest. Bellatine, Isaac, Winifred, and all the rest feel so lived-in it's as if they are gathered around you telling the story themselves.

Though here there be devils and angels alike, dybbuks and demons (who all look like soldiers, even when they aren't), Thistlefoot is the kind of lush prose with a burning core meant to be enjoyed curled up at the fire, or passed down at the dinner table lit by candlelight.

Kill the lantern, it begs, and raise the ghosts of history to guide you firmly toward the future.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*This book was received as an Advanced Reviewer's Copy from NetGalley.

I'm not going to lie. I really struggled with the beginning of this book. A bit too descriptive and of a poetic style of writing for me, I just had a hard time sinking in. I'm glad I persevered though because about a third of the way in my perspective completely changed and I started loving the book.

It was at about that point when the characters suddenly became fully fleshed out, the jumping narratives started to make sense, and the overall sense of the story really hit. Part tale of siblings with unique powers and struggling through generational trauma, part historical lookback as to what caused that trauma, and part folklore, with the chicken-footed Baba Yaga hut and other magical happenings, there was a lot to unpack and set up.

I don't want to spoil too much, but I really enjoyed the different take on trauma and how it can impact future generations was brought through this book. It took some twists and turns I didn't expect and while there are true "baddies", they may not be the ones focused on in this book. I also enjoyed some of the concepts of magic and considered it to be very magical realism because they were accepted everyday magic in some cases (um, yeah, a chicken-footed house that somehow isn't making sensational headlines). So it was a bit of an alternate reality in that perspective where magic is perhaps closer to the surface.

While some of the character's actions didn't entirely endear me to them, I did find the dynamics interesting. Especially given the puppetry and family history, even if we don't actually interact with all the family through the book, the nuance was there and the memories were there to shape the shown characters.

Very interesting book, I'd definitely recommend a read!

Review by M. Reynard 2022

Thistlefoot is an interesting blend of folklore, urban fantasy, and magical realism. There are four POVs alternating and running throughout Thistlefoot:

1) Thistlefoot’s narrative which includes the story of Baba Yaga and her two daughters growing up in Gedenkrovka, a Russian shtetl;
2) Isaac, with his ability to take on another’s characteristics and his constant need to be on the run: “As Jews, we evolved to be ready to run;”
3) His sister, Bellatine with her “Embering” hands and her unique abilities; and
4) The Longshadow Man who is in pursuit of Thistlefoot. “I am not a what; I am a when.”

Remembering is a major theme throughout this novel. As Thistlefoot points out, the worst and deadliest thing about a memory is that a memory can be forgotten; whereas “a folktale can never be forgotten because it wriggles and rearranges until it sits neatly on the heart.”

-“Please, please remember, when the time for remembering comes.”
-“Witness is a testimony. ... With a witness, it could be like we never died.”
-“What do memories want? They want to be remembered, commemorated.”
-“He’s doing damage control. So his version of the story can be the only version.”
-“For as long as it is remembered and told, the story remains. The silencers have lost.”
-“Bellatine and Isaac stayed. They bore witness. The time for running, ended.”

Kill the Lantern. Raise the Ghost.

At 448 pages, Thistlefoot is a bit on the long (and sometime slow) side. However, the action really picks up in the last quarter of the book with a fascinating concluding chapter in which Thistlefoot recounts “what came after.” Those last chapters really tied everything together. Overall, an enchanting read.