The Thorn and The Blossom by Theodora Goss

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.


If you don't know yet this book's presentation is different than others, it's put together in an accordion style. There is no spine and the pages are glued together in the format of an accordion. Quirk books as been coming out with several new interesting novels and presentations to their stories in an all new way. (They published Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as well as Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, if you are familiar with those.)

So you can approach this book by opening it from either side. From one side you get Evelyn's story and the other Brendan's. I chose to begin with Brendan's story. It's a story about reincarnation, a love between two souls that began in the Middle Ages through today.
The only thing that I was unhappy with with how shortened and chopped I felt the stories where. In one paragraph jumping from the death of a father, to attending school to getting married and having the wife hurt in an accident. I felt that one paragraph to tell this huge lump section of his life was a little too short, but the book was really meant to just focus on the romance/love story between Brandon and Evelyn.
It was a very fast read total of 80 pages and the set up is very unique and interesting although I found it hard to hold the book normally as it had no spine.
I enjoyed Brendan's story more than Evelyns but they do tie in nicely together.