GennaRose Nethercott Libri

In the ingenious and vividly imagined narrative poem The Lumberjack's Dove, GennaRose Nethercott describes a woodsman who cuts off his hand with an axe--however, instead of merely being severed, the hand shapeshifts into a dove. Far from representing just an event of pain and loss in the body, this incident spirals outward to explore countless facets of being human, prompting profound reflections on sacrifice and longing, time and memory, and--finally--the act of storytelling itself. The lumberjack, his hand, and the axe that separated the two all become participants in the story, with unique perspectives to share and lessons to impart. "I taught your fathers how to love," Axe says to the acorns and leaves around her. "I mean to be felled, sliced to lumber, & reassembled into a new body." Inflected with the uncanny enchantment of modern folklore and animated by the sly shifting of points of view, The Lumberjack's Dove is wise, richly textured poetry from a boundlessly creative new voice--back cover

In the tradition of modern fairytales like Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Naomi Novik's 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.