Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Book Review: The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss

I was given the opportunity to review The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss.  It is set to release on Tuesday, January 17, 2012.
From the back cover:
One enchanting romance. Two lovers keeping secrets. And a uniquely crafted book that binds their stories forever.

When Evelyn Morgan walked into the village bookstore, she didn’t know she would meet the love of her life. When Brendan Thorne handed her a medieval romance, he didn’t know it would change the course of his future. It was almost as if they were the cursed lovers in the old book itself...

The Thorn and the Blossom is a remarkable literary artifact: You can open the book in either direction to decide whether you’ll first read Brendan’s, or Evelyn’s account of the mysterious love affair. Choose a side, read it like a regular novel—and when you get to the end, you’ll find yourself at a whole new beginning.


First thing I that attracted my attention was the beautiful cover, the second thing was the unique binding.  On one side is Evelyn's story and the other side is Brendan's story.  The stories take place at the same time and each side is the other person's pint of view.  So the big decicion when I was ready to read this book was "Who's story do I read first?".  After much debating I decided to read Brendan's story first.
 Brendan Thorne lives in a small Cornish village, where he is the son of an antique bookstore owner.  He attends Oxford and is interested in Medieval Romance.  Evelyn is a poet and literary critic on vacation.  Evelyn walks into the book story and is immediately greeted by Brendan who decides to show her around the town.  There is an instant attraction between the two.  Brendan tells her the story "The Tale of the Green Knight" in which Sir Gawain looses his love and is cursed not to be with her for a thousand years.  This story is one that Brendan grew up with and that sticks with Evelyn.

The story follows them for several years as they loose touch and come together again and how "The Tale of the Green Knight" follows them not only in their careers but their lives.

Overall I really liked the book and both characters were likeable and the love story was great.  But what I thought this book needed was to be longer.  We follow them for a week and then suddenly it's 10 years later and then follow them again for a while and then more time has passed.  I felt like more was needed to fill in that time or spent more time building up their relationship.  I read Brendan's story first and was frustrated at him and why he just let things go.  Even when I read Evelyn's story I got frustrated with her and her lack of communication and inability to accepts things.  The ending I sort of liked, I was expecting something a little more to happen and more of a closure.

I think this is a book I would read again and recommend to my friends.  Plus it was so short it only took me a day to read.  The binding was a thing I didn't care too much about.  It actually made it a little hard to read and it was weird finding a place to put my bookmark in where it would fall out.  Also dropped the book a few times and thought I had ripped the pages.

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