A captivating, mysterious YA novel set in the world of the circus.
In Turley’s debut YA fantasy novel, a teen with a dark past discovers running away to join the circus could get her killed.
Seventeen-year-old orphan Gracie Hart has just committed a murder. Now she needs to get out of Albany before anyone finds the body. She plans on traveling to Chicago to find the aunt and uncle who supposedly live there, but she’s pickpocketed at the train station before accidentally ending up stowing away on a locomotive going the wrong direction. It’s not just any locomotive either. The train carries Vincenzio’s Circus Troupe and Menagerie, and it’s on its way to Montreal. When Gracie is discovered, Vincenzio makes an unexpected job offer. “You’ll be the new assistant for my magician,” he says, “and it’s so easy a monkey could do it. But the costume looks much nicer on a young woman—and it helps that you’re about the same size as our last girl.” The magician is Jack, with whom Gracie has already clashed due to his identical appearance to the man who pickpocketed her. If that isn’t enough, Jack is also the troupe’s knife thrower, and his last assistant ended up with a dagger between her eyes. It quickly becomes apparent that there are strange goings-on at the circus—happenings that mere stage tricks can’t account for—and if Gracie can’t figure them out, she may soon suffer the fate of the magician’s previous assistant! Turley’s prose elegantly embodies the glam and drama of the circus: “Gracie raised her arms high over her head, elbows bent to form a diamond. The flames in the kerosene lights shivered with the motion of air. The crowd inhaled as Jack raised his first knife past his ear. Gracie’s breath caught and she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes open.” Gracie is an immediately engaging protagonist, a surprisingly relatable “guttersnipe” who guides the reader into the carnivalesque world of the traveling circus. There are some aspects of the plot that don’t quite coalesce, but like a good sideshow performance, the book manages to delight and confound.
A captivating, mysterious YA novel set in the world of the circus.Pub Date: May 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4621-4153-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sweetwater Books
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.
Moreno-Garcia offers a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico.
Inquisitive 22-year-old socialite and anthropology enthusiast Noemí Taboada adores beautiful clothes and nights on the town in Mexico City with a bevy of handsome suitors, but her carefree existence is cut short when her father shows her a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married fair-haired and blue-eyed Virgil Doyle, who comes from a prominent English mining family that built their now-dwindling fortune on the backs of Indigenous laborers. Catalina lives in High Place, the Doyle family’s crumbling mansion near the former mining town of El Triunfo. In the letter, Catalina begs for Noemí’s help, claiming that she is “bound, threads like iron through my mind and my skin,” and that High Place is “sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Upon Noemí’s arrival at High Place, she’s struck by the Doyle family’s cool reception of her and their unabashed racism. She's alarmed by the once-vibrant Catalina’s listless state and by the enigmatic Virgil and his ancient, leering father, Howard. Nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoric dreams of golden dust and fleshy bodies plague Noemí, and it becomes apparent that the Doyles haven’t left their blood-soaked legacy behind. Luckily, the brave Noemí is no delicate flower, and she’ll need all her wits about her for the battle ahead. Moreno-Garcia weaves elements of Mexican folklore with themes of decay, sacrifice, and rebirth, casting a dark spell all the way to the visceral and heart-pounding finale.
Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-62078-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
