Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Dear Thorns

Dear Thorns

Olsson, Karen

Hardcover

WesternsGeneral Fiction

Publisher Price: $27.00

PREORDER - Expected ship date November 3, 2026

ISBN10: 1662603517
ISBN13: 9781662603518
Publisher: Astra House
Published: Nov 3 2026
Pages: 280
Language: English
For fans of Dana Spiotta's Wayward and Katie Kitamura's Intimacies we follow Lora, a wildlife refuge worker in South Texas who gets tangled up in a romantic relationship with a much younger male intern.

Lora has worked at the wildlife refuge in South Texas for seven years, trapping and studying the elusive Texas ocelot. Interns come and go, but when Ben arrives, something is awakened in Lora that has long been dormant.

As Lora and Ben track the beautiful, almost mystical animal, tensions arise on the refuge. Lora's boss strategizes about how to turn part of the refuge into a hunting destination; an eccentric artist and rancher pitches an unconventional scheme to help the ocelots; and Lora and Ben make a series of impulsive, inappropriate choices. Along the way, the reader learns about Lora's professional and romantic history--the story of a woman dedicated to her career--and is immersed in the world of the ranchlands just above the Texas-Mexico border, home to a distinct mix of species: animal, plant, and human.

With sharp prose and subtle humor, critically-acclaimed writer Karen Olsson mines the gulf between youth and middle age and reckons with the ecological disaster of species loss. Her novel illuminates how the things we do to wild animals--isolating them, reducing their habitats, disconnecting them from other groups--are all things we seem to do to ourselves. Brainy, elegant, and deeply engrossing, Dear Thorns is a portrait of a woman's idealism in a compromised world.

Also in

General Fiction

View All