Author Archives: Thistle

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About Thistle

Queer, neurospicy, chronically longwinded oversharer. 40s; they/them. ✍️📷🐈📚🥾🇩🇪🏳️‍🌈😇💖🐍

Sunday Coffee – Beginnings

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Thistle

This week has been a fun trip back down memory lane: Resurrecting The Zen Leaf. Back-posting my earliest reviews, from 2008. God, I was such a snob about modern fiction back then. A lot of those reviews were rather snarky, heh. … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 4 Comments

Emma (series), by Kaoru Mori

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Thistle

Vague series synopsis: A maid named Emma in 19th-century London becomes romantically attached to a man above her station. He loves her as well, and the two of them must navigate this treacherous ground together. I read the first volume … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Visual, Young Adult | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Tarot Cafe (series), by Sang-Sun Park

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Thistle

I don’t read a lot of manga. I’ve tried a few in the past and they didn’t appeal to me, artistically, plus I had a hard time following the plots. So I’m not sure why, on my first trip to … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Visual, Young Adult | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Resurrecting The Zen Leaf

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Thistle

I started blogging on Valentine’s Day of 2008. My second post was a book review. At the time, I’d never heard of book blogs, nor did I know anyone else who blogged about books. Fast forward a couple months, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Talk, Personal | 15 Comments

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness (audio)

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Thistle

Diana Bishop is from a long line of witches, but she’s refused to use her magic since her parents got killed in Africa when she was seven. She’s now an adult studying at Oxford, and is not happy when a … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

On My Skin, These Words I Write

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Thistle

Note: Originally posted on Boston Blooming. I got my first tattoo on 7/12/13. It’s an infinity sign on my wrist, modeled after the halo on the STRENGTH card in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The tattoo was triply significant to me. First, I’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, Writing | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Tales of the City, by Armistead Maupin

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Thistle

When Mary Anne Singleton visits San Francisco, she decides to stay there permanently, leaving her more traditional life back in Cleveland. She finds a place to live at 28 Barbary Lane, where the occupants of the various apartments operate much … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Playlist for Maldralith

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Thistle

Note: Originally posted on Boston Blooming. For a lot of writers, music and words are pretty closely entangled, and I’m no different. Each novel I write comes with an accompanying soundtrack of songs that have become associated with some portion … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Thistle

Okay. I loved the first two books in this series. I read them both earlier in the year, and my plan was to spread the five (as of now) books out through 2014. I decided it was about time to … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Adult, Prose | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dreams of Gods and Monsters, by Laini Taylor

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Thistle

Ever have one of those books that you really, really want to read and at the same time, you are really, really terrified to read, because what if it doesn’t live up to your hopes and expectations? That was Dreams … Continue reading →

Posted in 2014, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , | 2 Comments