Posted on by Jacquie Biggar

#BookReview- The Ladies of the Secret Circus by @ConstanceSayers #Fantasy #Reading


Description via Amazon.com

From the author of A Witch in Time comes a magical story set in Jazz Age Paris and modern-day America of family secrets and lost love set against the backdrop of an extraordinary circus.

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder—a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family’s circus, it’s the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything.

Virginia, 2004:Lara Barnes is on top of the world, until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day. When her desperate search for answers unexpectedly leads to her great-grandmother’s journals, Lara is swept into a story of a dark circus and ill-fated love.

Soon secrets about Lara’s family history begin to come to light, revealing a curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations. A curse that might be tied to her fiancé’s mysterious disappearance.

Biography

Constance Sayers’ is the author of A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus which will be published on March 23, 2021, from Redhook (Hachette Book Group).

A finalist for Alternating Current’s 2016 Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short stories have appeared in Souvenir and Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women as well as The Sky is a Free Country. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received her master of arts in English from George Mason University and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference where she studied with Charles Baxter and Lauren Groff. A media executive, she’s twice been named one of the “Top 100 Media People in America” by Folio and included in their list of “Top Women in Media.”

She lives outside of Washington DC. Like her character in Ladies of the Secret Circus, she was the host of a radio show from midnight to six.

Photo by Elly Fairytale on Pexels.com

My Review

A thought-provoking read!

Lara Barnes prepares for her wedding day, nervous, excited, and madly in love. But then her fiancé disappears and she must somehow come to terms with the rumors and speculation that abounds in her small hometown.

When police chief Ben Archer shows up on Lara’s doorstep with the upsetting news that Todd’s car was found in the exact same place as a disappearance from thirty years ago (to the day) the mystery grows.

The investigation turns up links to Lara’s family and fuels her search into a past stranger than anything she could have imagined.

This story takes place in two time frames and another dimension- yes, you read that right!

1925 Paris is alive with artists, writers, and a mysterious circus that only appears to those gifted with a magical ticket.

The acts are astonishing, the stars of the circus- three sisters- breathtaking. But they share a secret, one that ties them to the circus forever. They are half-mortal, half-daemon. The girls’ father is Althacasur, Lucifer’s general, a daemon with great power. He created the circus as a way for his girls to shine, and they thrived under the spotlight until one falls in love and another in lust with the same man. It creates a rift which lasts decades.

This story is unlike anything I’ve ever read but it was riveting!

There is the mystery of the missing men woven throughout the book, but the main storyline is a family saga like no other.

This is a love-it or hate-it type of book- I loved it!

“I voluntarily read an ARC of this book which was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.”

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