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Raised in Upstate New York, Anna Burke graduated from Smith College in 2012 with degrees in English Literature and Studio Art. She holds a certificate from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa; and was the inaugural recipient of the Sandra Moran Scholarship for the Golden Crown Literary Society's Writing Academy. Anna's debut novel, Compass Rose, was written while living on a small island in the West Indies, but Thorn is a product of a long, cold New England winter.
Burke is adept at imbuing a deep fairy tale with social relevance. Thorn gives young women all the leading roles: heroes, villains, and lovers. The story delves into clothing as self-presentation, the release from bearing children, the work of self-reliance, reckoning with a family or past that no longer fits, the give and take of true partnership, and the interlinked importance of self-knowledge and love. It does all of this within a framework of castles, rugged landscapes, and forbidding enchantments. Thoroughly gratifying, Thorn is a perennial escape fantasy tangled up with a call to adventure. Burke turns one young woman's release from drudgery into a beguiling disruption of conventional social roles, expected dichotomies, and personal power. --Foreword Reviews
