If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?
“This is the magic circus book that I have been looking for all my life.”―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Every Heart A Doorway
Ringmaster — Rin, to those who know her best — can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.
With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe — the Circus of the Fantasticals — travel the midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.
But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin’s past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can’t fully escape.
It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin’s circus has something he wants, and he won’t stop until it’s his.
J. R. Dawson (she/they) is a writer and educator who has published shorter works in places such as F&SF, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Lightspeed. She lives in Omaha with a loving spouse and three dogs. Having earned a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast, Dawson works as a teaching artist. Her clients include assorted Midwestern non-profits that teach kids the power of performance and storytelling.
My thoughts: one of my literary loves is circus themed books, I blame Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus. I am fascinated by the history too, of circuses and side shows and the terribly poorly treated “freaks” who worked in them.
Here, instead of freaks we find Sparks, people gifted with strange powers or abilities, something that happened during the dark days of the First World War. No one knows why or how, but there it is.
Rin, Odette and Mauve try to use their gifts for good, taking in other Sparks and offering them a home in their travelling circus, while also trying to make the world a better, happier place, even if it is one person at a time.
They find Jo, and her twin Charles, and invite them to join the family. Jo can create vivid, realistic illusions with her mind, and Charles has invulnerable skin. But Jo’s power could be dangerous in the wrong hands – like the sinister Circus King.
Rin has a past she keeps secret, and it’s starting to catch up with her. Can she and her friends outwit the cruel man chasing them, can they prevent another war?
It’s beautiful and magical and sad and hopeful and I cried and laughed and rooted so hard for Rin and the family she built, for her wife Odette, for Mauve and her ability to see the future but not always fear it, for Bernard. For Jo and Charles too, two sweet kids caught up in something so much bigger than them. I need a sequel, I want to know that Rin’s plan works and they’re all ok. It’s so very, very good.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 