“But I do know this: all of Thornchapel is a threshold of sorts, and when you are there, you are one too. I became a gate, a tabernacle, and an altar. A holiness of lanky limbs and angry l**t, and a hallow of ink-stained fingers and unmet needs.”
I suppose, if I really wanted to do it, I could do the traditional reviewer thing and give you an overview of what you might expect concerning plot, character development etc… I also may be somewhat trite in my expressing that this story deserves more than that. Because let’s face it, I am an enthusiastic reader and lover of romance. I am also a softie when it comes to assigning stars. I also must admit I am rusty in my writing. With all this nonsense said about me out of the way. I entreat you, dear friend, to hear me when I say that this last book is an “extra” ordinary finale to a series that plumbs the depth of belief, faith, love in a mystical and mysterious modern fairytale, sprinkled liberally with eroticism and kinky expressions of love. It is a masterful ending to what I consider a virtuosic feat of complex thematic storytelling.
Before I continue with my thoughts, I need to applaud Ms. Simone for not only having written such a lush, compelling, weighty, full-bodied saga, but also for having done so knowing that it would probably be (what she describes in her own words); “A series that made no commercial or career sense to write. A series that didn't really match Priest or New Camelot, a series that was maybe, ah, less than mainstream, we could say.” Thank you Sierra Simone and all who supported you in your inspiration and subsequent resulting masterpiece series. There’s a beautiful integrity in a work written solely for the sake of the artist exercising her talent in telling an inspired story to move hearts, delight senses and memories and inspire thinking.
Most romance readers can tell when they are being manipulated by the usual “marketable tropes”…and if done well, we often welcome the escape. And while such lovely escape is found in this book in inventive, scorching hot scenes that will leave your body shaken and head spinning, there is a foundation of deep, primal, mysticism and “truth” underneath all that heat. There is even questioning of what is the “truth” and how much of it can we actually comprehend. Ah the joys in the mystery of existence!
“This is symbolic thinking we’re dealing with, and unfamiliar symbolic thinking at that, and symbolic thinking is entirely different from reasoning, it’s entirely different from the kind of rationale that we would use to build a supermarket.”
Speaking through the voice of a secondary character to the six main characters, the author gives us a clue to one of the languages she is using to tell us this story and the meaning it portends. This is the Thorn King, Auden’s book. He is faced with the need to close a door that has opened to another world or dimension which opened when Auden and his coterie celebrated pagan rites during Lammas.
There is a growing profusion of black roses around the Thorn Chapel near the opened door at an impossible time of year. The history of death and disease seemingly associated with previous appearances of the opened door makes it an ominous, yet compelling mystery. Thornchapel calls those who separated and scattered after Lammas back to each other and the place that has claimed them when they were children. The Thorn King needs to learn how to be a king even if this means giving his life to close the door to protect his kin and kingdom.
“And I feel like a king now when I walk to the door to die for my friends. There is power in this kind of submission. A power that means every part of me can be used for good—even the parts of me that would eat the world raw if left untrammeled. And maybe that is the lesson of the Year King, of the Babylonian kings who were slapped during Akitu, of monarchs who kneel to be anointed. Power must come with humility. They cannot be picked apart. They should not. I will not.”
There is multifold symbolism in the black rose. It could denote the undertaking of a long and arduous journey but also hope for what is awaiting at the journey’s end. It may represent the hope of a miracle. It could also represent bidding farewell to someone. Additionally, it can represent accomplishment or deference to someone. The fragrance of the rose itself is associated with holiness (The "odor of sanctity" is a phenomenon attributed to a miraculous fragrance coming from a holy person, such as a saint.)
The black roses are the bruises on or from this ominous open “door”. These roses are first described in the book as the color of a “freshly turned bruise” by a 17 year-old Auden who found one growing near the Thorn Chapel in the deep of winter. (Which reminded me of a favorite Christmas Hymn which appeared in Cologne, Germany in 1599, "Lo, how a rose e'er blooming". The meaning of this for me is a whole other discussion from which I will refrain.) Auden speaks often of bruising and needing to bruise his lovers.
“Surely it is hard enough to be one person, one whole person, who loves like normal people love, but to be this— to be the teeth in the dark and the hands that soothe— and to not even be that properly? Because I want to hold everyone I love inside me and hollow myself out so they can nestle right against my bloody ribs, but how can I trust myself to do that? Why should anyone trust me to do that when I know exactly what kind of man I am, what bruises I long to leave?”
I submit to you that while “bruises” and “bruising” are often associated with injury and harm, there is another connotation to the concept of bruising that one can consider. Bruising as it relates to spices and herbs. One bruises these culinary ingredients to release their flavor, their goodness. Is this “door” then bruising this plane of existence to offer some flavor, goodness, perhaps even, truth to the six in whom Thornchapel has woven its mysteries into their very existence?
Our main characters determine that while the door is open, it will not be penetrable until the pagan feast Samhain,. The eve of Samhain is now commonly known as Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve). Christians celebrate the day of Samhain as All Saint’s day. Traditionally, the night of All Hallow’s Eve is associated with celebrating the Ancestors. It is a time when the veil between our world and the next is considered to be at its thinnest.
Samhain, itself, contributes unique allegory and metaphor which underpins the love stories in this series. Samhain is a time to welcome the dissolution of illusions and false certainties in which we have invested our intellect and heart. This is a mysterious path that can frighten one because of the uncertainties and the “unknowable” it represents. As too, does the “door” represent the unknowable the uncertain. Is it malevolent or benevolent? Which brings me to a brief…very brief discussion of the significance of quantum theory mentioned twice in this last book.
Scholars in the past thought they had the world figured out when they envisioned it an intricately woven mechanical device…similar to a clock. All things eventually knowable when the formula or engineered design elements could be parsed and discovered…until Quantum theory disabused all serious scholars of that particular illusion. It seems that the mere duality of matter…wave or particle or wave or particle was just the beginning of the discovery of the wonderful, absolute weirdness of the world and universe. The possibilities are endless. For all that we claim to know and understand, fundamentally, we really do not understand anything. Reality, life and death are mysterious, mystical, frightening?, reassuring? So, too, the “Door of Bruises”… a quantum level mystery?
I believe while our author beautifully illustrates in this saga, the mysteries of existence and the uncertainties we live with at the core of ourselves, she suggests that along with the quantum nature of all things is the quantum nature of love.
“Her father had been right—love was quantum. Love was multi-dimensional, alchemical, complex, and the alternative was void, the frozen absolute zero of the deepest space. Nothingness. If vulnerability, if trust and intimacy, brought the risk of pain with it—well. Wasn’t that better than a life at zero degrees Kelvin, feeling nothing, loving nothing, unharmed maybe, but unknown and unseen to anyone? Wasn’t it better to be known? Better to be seen?"
These are but a few of the ideas I discovered which were sparked by this masterful writer.
It should be clear at this point just how much I recommend this book and this series to you. It is intriguing, entertaining and nourishment for your soul. Even if you disagree with my assessment of the symbolism, there is a great storyline and wonderful character development with an array of very intriguing and swoon-worthy characters. Did I mention it was scorching? Fire, my friends, just fire!
A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel, #1) by Sierra Simone Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel, #2) by Sierra Simone Door of Bruises (Thornchapel, #4) by Sierra Simone Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel, #3) by Sierra Simone
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A stunning, heartbreaking conclusion
5⭐️ 5🌶️ A stunning, heartbreaking conclusion to this magical gothic tale. Door of Bruises takes readers on a transcendent journey to and through the doors of Thornchapel through the eyes of its inhabitants. I was bewitched by this story and am sad it has come to an end, but I'm thankful for it nonetheless. I remain firm in my belief that this series is "too smart" for me. There's much talk of history, religion, actions and powerful consequences, implications and intentions. It was fascinating, even when I had to reread a paragraph to make sure I captured as much as I could. I love how the conversations of our MCs brought perspective to their very real surroundings. Hearing what it all could mean, then seeing how things played out before them... It was mesmerizing. Thinking about St. Sebastian, Poe, and Auden still hurts my heart and I finished this book weeks ago. Auden will forever be one of the most complex characters I've read in romance, and St. Sebastian is one of the most tortured. Their push and pull, lust and longing, hate and fear... Ugh, I want to reread their story all over again for the first time. And BECKET! I'll never let him go. This series won't be for everyone. It's different than anything else I've read in dark romance/erotica, but told in only the way Sierra Simone can. If you're a fan of her writing and looking for a little mystery and magic along with your spice... with a touch of taboo... this may be for you.
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2021
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- Jo - Bookish.ZebraReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2025
Creeped out but still turned on 🙈
