The Book of Thorns : An Enchanting Tale of Two Sisters Connected by Magic
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Overview
"Betrayal, loss, love, redemption, and justice collide in this masterpiece of a novel. You won't want to miss The Book of Thorns." --Paulette Kennedy, author of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport
A spellbinding tale of secrets, betrayal, and magic from the author of The Heir to Blackwood Library
Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and out of options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon's Grande Arm e. As a naturalist, her mysterious ability to heal any wound with herbal mixtures invites awe amongst the soldiers...and suspicion. For behind Cornelia's vast knowledge of the natural world is a secret she keeps hidden--the flowers speak to her through a mystical connection she has felt since childhood. One that her mother taught her to heed, before she disappeared.
As Napoleon's army descends on Waterloo, the flowers sing to her of a startling revelation: a girl who bears a striking resemblance to Cornelia. A girl she almost remembers--her sister, lost long ago, who seems to share the same gifts. Determined to reunite with Lijsbeth despite being on opposite sides of the war, Cornelia is drawn into a whirlwind of betrayal, secrets, and lies. Brought together by fate and magic at the peak of the war, the sisters must uncover the key to the source of the power that connects them as accusations of witchcraft swirl and threaten to destroy their very lives.
Don't miss A MAGIC DEEP & DROWNING, Hester Fox's lush, enchanting reimagining of The Little Mermaid, where a young woman in 1650 Friesland must face a deadly choice between love, duty, and a mythic legacy...
Look for these other gothic mysteries from Hester Fox:
- The Last Heir to Blackwood Library
- The Witch of Willow Hall
- The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
- The Widow of Pale Harbor
- A Lullaby for Witches
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781525812019
- ISBN-10: 1525812017
- Publisher: Graydon House
- Publish Date: April 2024
- Dimensions: 7.87 x 5.28 x 0.87 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.5 pounds
- Page Count: 320
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The Napoleonic wars have been fertile ground for historical fantasy in recent years. From the draconic aerial combat of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke’s wry fairy tale of manners, that continent-spanning conflict provides an ideal canvas for fantastical retellings. It’s sweeping in scope, and is easier to romanticize than more recent wars. Hester Fox’s The Book of Thorns, however, is not about magicians single-handedly winning battles. Rather, it is about two women who can hear flowers. Englishwoman Cornelia and Belgian maid Lijsbeth escape their abusive homes and find themselves on opposite sides of the Waterloo battle lines. Neither woman can change the course of the war. All they can hope for is to somehow find safety and joy in a hostile world.
Fox insists on confronting Cornelia and Lijsbeth’s individual traumas head-on. They bear profound scars and are, in their own way, survivors, although both would balk at being called such. Like Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, The Book of Thorns is fundamentally a war novel dressed up in magical conceits—in this case, talking rosebushes. Its villains are selfish, not self-consciously evil; its heroes are genuinely decent people, but decency alone is not enough for them to prevail.
The Book of Thorns has a happy ending, in its own way: Both Cornelia and Lijsbeth find people they love, who love them back and who would never cause them pain. That is a kind of joy, if hard-won. Fox does not hide from the fact that for all the romance surrounding Bonaparte’s exploits, nobody who fought at Waterloo came out unscathed, whether they were breathing by battle’s end or not. But Fox also reminds us that, even in fields tilled by cavalry charges and fertilized with gunpowder, flowers can grow.
The Napoleonic wars have been fertile ground for historical fantasy in recent years. From the draconic aerial combat of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke’s wry fairy tale of manners, that continent-spanning conflict provides an ideal canvas for fantastical retellings. It’s sweeping in scope, and is easier to romanticize than more recent wars. Hester Fox’s The Book of Thorns, however, is not about magicians single-handedly winning battles. Rather, it is about two women who can hear flowers. Englishwoman Cornelia and Belgian maid Lijsbeth escape their abusive homes and find themselves on opposite sides of the Waterloo battle lines. Neither woman can change the course of the war. All they can hope for is to somehow find safety and joy in a hostile world.
Fox insists on confronting Cornelia and Lijsbeth’s individual traumas head-on. They bear profound scars and are, in their own way, survivors, although both would balk at being called such. Like Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, The Book of Thorns is fundamentally a war novel dressed up in magical conceits—in this case, talking rosebushes. Its villains are selfish, not self-consciously evil; its heroes are genuinely decent people, but decency alone is not enough for them to prevail.
The Book of Thorns has a happy ending, in its own way: Both Cornelia and Lijsbeth find people they love, who love them back and who would never cause them pain. That is a kind of joy, if hard-won. Fox does not hide from the fact that for all the romance surrounding Bonaparte’s exploits, nobody who fought at Waterloo came out unscathed, whether they were breathing by battle’s end or not. But Fox also reminds us that, even in fields tilled by cavalry charges and fertilized with gunpowder, flowers can grow.