Circus of wonders A novel

Elizabeth Macneal, 1988-

Book - 2022

When Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders pitches its tent in a poor coastal town, the life of one young girl changes forever. Sold to the ringmaster as a zleopard girly because of the birthmarks that cover her body, Nell is utterly devastated. But as she grows close to the other performers, she finds herself enchanted by the glittering freedom of the circus, and by her own role as the Queen of the Moon and Stars. Before long, Nell's fame spreads across the world--and with it, a chance for Jasper Jupiter to grow his own name and fortune. But what happens when her fame begins to eclipse his own, when even Jasper's loyal brother Toby becomes captivated by Nell? No longer the quiet flower-picker, Nell knows her own place in the w...orld, and she will fight for it.

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Subjects
Genres
Historical fiction
Published
New York : Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Elizabeth Macneal, 1988- (author)
Edition
First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition
Physical Description
361 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781982106799
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Ostracized by her small village because of her skin condition, Nell longs for a life beyond the backbreaking work in the fields and the villagers' stares. Sold to Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders by her father, Nell is afraid and intrigued. Performing, not as a sideshow attraction, but instead as the Queen of the Moon and Stars, Nell wears mechanical wings and dives from higher and higher platforms. Her fame grows as does her love for Toby, Jasper's brother, and Nell finally finds the acceptance she has been longing for her whole life. But Jasper's jealousy and his bad business deals threaten to take away everything Nell has worked hard for. With references to Frankenstein, "The Little Mermaid," and other tales, Macneal has written a soaring novel. The historical details are finely wrought, and hidden underneath the Victorian trappings is a wholly modern discourse on the manipulation of images to create a false narrative. A great pick for book clubs and all those seeking a wondrous story awash in atmospheric details and fully lived characters. Highly recommended for all libraries.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Macneal (The Doll Factory) returns with a colorful historical brimming with action and psychological conflict. Nell, 19, is ridiculed and feared in her village in 1860s England due to the birthmarks covering half her face and dappling her body. When Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders pitches its tent in their tiny settlement, Nell's father drunkenly sells Nell to the megalomaniacal showman for £20. Jasper's sensitive and bearlike brother Toby, haunted by guilt over an incident in the Crimean War that keeps him under Jasper's thumb, becomes Nell's champion and eventually her lover. Jasper, meanwhile, bills Nell as "The Queen of the Moon and Stars," who, fitted with mechanical wings, flies on ropes above the heads of awestruck spectators. With performances in London, including one for Queen Victoria, Nell's fame starts to surpass Jasper's, leading to explosive confrontations between the two. Macneal successfully balances thrilling action sequences with poignant passages, particularly the tender descriptions of Toby and Nell's relationship. The author brings her fully developed characters to life, highlighting the exploitation of people with visible differences during Victorian times. This makes for a worthy spectacle of its own. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. (Feb.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

In a small coastal village in England, circa 1895, Nell lives a solitary life with her father and brother, picking flowers for a living. She faces a dim future because her skin is covered with birthmarks, which sets her apart from others. But then Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders arrives. Jasper's brother Toby crosses paths with Nell, and is fascinated by her, but his efforts to save her from Jasper's clutches fail. Nell's father agrees to sell her to Jasper, sealing Nell's fate. Despite this, Nell soon realizes that the circus, full of wonders and oddities, is a place she could prosper, and prosper she does, going from "Leopard Girl" to "the Queen of the Moon and Stars." But when her fame becomes unprecedented, Jasper's jealousy threatens the circus's very livelihood. Macneal's (The Doll Factory) absorbing, atmospheric, and multilayered historical drama mesmerizes and dazzles. There is a steadily unfolding sense of foreboding as Jasper's bitterness threatens Nell's future and traps Toby between loyalty to his brother and love for Nell. VERDICT Macneal's lavish descriptions and vivid characterizations enrich the themes of exploitation, freedom, self-love, and redemption. A must for fans of historical fiction.--Julie Whiteley

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The circus gives a young woman with a unique condition a chance to reinvent her story. Nell, who was born with a unique skin condition, feels "the familiar burn of eyes on her" as villagers react to the news that the circus is coming to their small town. She's used to being treated as if she was a "living curiosity," the marks on her skin separating her from the rest of the world except for her brother, Charlie. Nell's worst fears are realized when her father sells her to Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders, helping the showman capture her the night before the circus travels on. While at first Nell feels like a caged animal, fighting to be free again, Jasper's vision of elevating Nell into a superstar--the amazing Nellie Moon, her skin speckled like the stars in the night sky--begins to change her perspective. "The dull reality of her life--the flower farm and the sea and Charlie--has begun to fog and vanish." Macneal develops an intimate tale of passion, longing, and self-preservation set amid a bustling Victorian-era London, where oddities draw an eager crowd and P.T. Barnum's performers are household names. This story is a slow burn, almost like a circus building toward its grand finale. Overburdened at first by overly descriptive language, the narrative becomes more captivating as Nell develops into a freethinking, inspired character. Jasper, the showman, thinks of the circus as "life, desire, amplified," and it's this desire reflected in the individual characters that will keep readers invested. Macneal does a solid job of weaving comparisons to Shelley's Frankenstein throughout; the performers are diminished to monsters at times and at others they are at risk of growing more powerful than the man who invented them. The complex characters, their backstories and satisfying trajectories, make up for flowery prose and plotlines spun and quickly unraveled. Don't be tricked; the circus is not the star of this show. Instead, larger-than-life characters draw a captive audience. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1. Nell Nell It begins with an advertisement, nailed to an oak tree. "Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders!" someone shouts. "What is it?" "The greatest show on earth!" Everyone is shuffling forward, tutting, shouting. A woman shrieks, "Watch your wings!" Through a gap between armpits, Nell glimpses a fragment of the handbill. The color sings, bright red edged in gold. An illustration of a bearded woman, dressed in a red doublet, golden wings clipped to her boots. " Stella the Songbird, Bearded Like a Bear! " Nell leans closer, straining to see the whole of the advertisement, to read the looping words. " Minnie, the Famed Behemoth "--a huge gray creature, long snouted--" Brunette, the Welsh Giantess. The World's Smallest Museum of Curious Objects "--a sketch of a white crocodile in a jar, the sloughed skin of a snake. At the top of the handbill, three times the size of any of the other acts, is a man's face. His mustache is curled into two sharp brackets, cane held like a thunderbolt. " Jasper Jupiter ," she reads, " showman, presents a dazzling troupe of living curiosities-- " "What's a living curiosity?" Nell asks her brother. He doesn't answer. As she stands there, she forgets the endless cutting and tying of violets and narcissi, the numerous bee stings that swell her hands, the spring sun that bakes her skin until it looks parboiled. Wonder kindles in her. The circus is coming here, to their small village. It will pin itself to the salt-bleached fields behind them, stain the sky with splashes of exquisite color, spill knife jugglers and exotic animals and girls who strut through the streets as if they own them. She presses closer to her brother, listens to the racket of questions. Gasps, exclamations. "How do they make the poodles dance?" "A monkey, dressed as a tiny gallant!" "Does that woman really have a beard?" "Mouse pelts. It will be mouse pelts, fixed with glue." Nell stares at the handbill--its scrolled edges, its fierce colors, its shimmering script--and tries to burn it into her mind. She wishes she could keep it. She would like to sneak back when it is dark and pull loose the nails--gently, so as not to rip the paper--and look at it whenever she wants, to study these curious people as carefully as she pores over the woodcuts in the Bible. Tent shows have often pitched in nearby towns, but never in their village. Her father even visited Sanger's when it set up in Hastings. He told stories about boys with painted lips, men who rode horses upside down and fired pistols at pint pots. Marvels you wouldn't believe. And the doxies--oh, as cheap as-- He broke off, winked at Charlie. In the fields, news of circus disasters passed gleefully from mouth to mouth. Tamers eaten by lions, girls who tiptoed across high wires and tumbled to their deaths, fires that consumed the tent whole and roasted the spectators inside, boiled whales in their tanks. There is a lull in the shouting, and into that a voice calls, "Are you in it?" It is Lenny, the crate builder, his red hair falling into his eyes. He is grinning as if he expects everyone to join in. Those around him fall silent and, encouraged, he speaks more loudly. "Show us a handstand! Before the other wonders arrive." From the way her brother flinches, at first Nell thinks Lenny is talking to him. But it is impossible; there is nothing unusual about Charlie, and it is her who Lenny watches, his gaze sliding over her hands and cheeks. The silence hangs, broken only by whispers. "What did he say?" "I didn't hear!" A shuffling, fidgeting. Nell can feel the familiar burn of eyes on her. When she glances up, they startle, focus too intently on their fingernails, at a stone on the ground. They mean to be kind, she knows, to spare her the humiliation. Old memories split open. How, two years ago, the storm cast salt onto the violets and shriveled them, and her father pointed at her with a wavering finger. She's a bad omen, and I said it the day she was born. How her brother's sweetheart, Mary, is careful not to brush her hand by mistake. Is it catching? The bare stares of passing travelers, the mountebanks who try to sell her pills and lotions and powders. A life of being both intensely visible and unseen. "What did you say, Lenny?" her brother demands, and he is poised, taut as a ratting terrier. "Leave him," Nell whispers. "Please." She is not a child, not a scrap of meat to be fought over by dogs. It is not their fight; it is hers . She feels it like a fist in her belly. She covers herself with her hands as if she is naked. The crowd moves back as Charlie pounces, his arm pounding like the anvil of a machine, Lenny pinned beneath him. Somebody tries to pull him off, but he is a monster, swiping, kicking, flailing. "Please," she begs, reaching for her brother's shirt. "Stop it, Charlie." She looks up. Space has opened around her. She is standing alone, fidgeting with the hem of her cap. A jewel of blood glints in the dust. Sweat circles the armpits of her dress. The minister hovers his hand over her shoulder as if to pat it. Her bee stings throb, her hands bruised purple with sap. Nell forces her way through the crowd. Behind her, the grunt of fighting, fabric tearing. She starts to walk toward the cliffs. She craves a swim, that low ache as her limbs fight the current. She will not run, she tells herself, but her footsteps soon hammer the ground and her breath is hot in her throat. Excerpted from Circus of Wonders: A Novel by Elizabeth Macneal All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.