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Church of Marvels

Church of Marvels 3

by Leslie Parry
Paperback
Publication Date: 12/05/2015
4/5 Rating 3 Reviews

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$29.99

New York, 1895. It's late on a warm city night when Sylvan Threadgill, a young night soiler who cleans out the privies behind the tenement houses, pulls a terrible secret out from the filthy hollows: an abandoned newborn baby. An orphan himself, Sylvan was raised by a kindly Italian family and can't bring himself to leave the baby in the slop. He tucks her into his chest, resolving to find out where she belongs.

Odile Church is the girl-on-the-wheel, a second-fiddle act in a show that has long since lost its magic. Odile and her sister Belle were raised in the curtained halls of their mother's spectacular Coney Island sideshow: The Church of Marvels. Belle was always the star-the sword swallower-light, nimble, a true human marvel. But now the sideshow has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in the ashes, and Belle has escaped to the city.

Alphie wakes up groggy and confused in Blackwell's Lunatic Asylum. The last thing she remembers is a dark stain on the floor, her mother-in-law screaming. She had once walked the streets as an escort and a penny-Rembrandt, cleaning up men after their drunken brawls. Now she is married; a lady in a reputable home. She is sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband's vile mother. But then a young woman is committed alongside her, and when she coughs up a pair of scissors from the depths of her agile throat, Alphie knows she harbors a dangerous secret that will alter the course of both of their lives...

On a single night, these strangers' lives will become irrevocably entwined, as secrets come to light and outsiders struggle for acceptance. From the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular sideshow to a desolate asylum, Leslie Parry makes turn-of-the-century New York feel alive, vivid, and magical in this luminous debut. In prose as magnetic and lucid as it is detailed, she offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past marked by astonishing feats of narrative that will leave you breathless.

ISBN:
9781473605633
9781473605633
Category:
Historical Fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
12-05-2015
Language:
English
Publisher:
Hodder & Stoughton
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Dimensions (mm):
234x156x25mm

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Reviews

4.43

Based on 3 reviews

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3 Reviews

Not to judge a book by its cover, but really, I dare you to not pick it up. Beautiful!

Be transported into this gritty, exciting world of 19th century lower class New York and uncover the secrets of four intriguing characters as their pasts and present worlds become entwined. The series of events that unfold is nothing that I expected. You won’t be able to put down this thrilling, dramatic and vibrant debut.

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I must say that this book was, to me, very disappointing...well written, good plot line, badly resolved. Would not give it to any of my friends to read.

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I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, where while I've read some good books and have appreciated their good writing, good stories, all that, nothing has really grabbed me and drawn me in hard.
Until, that is, I started reading Leslie Parry's marvellous debut, "Church of Marvels", which left me neglecting my family, neglecting to sleep, sneaking a read while at work - basically wanting to read it all now while at the same time dreading it ending.
I love the characters here, I love how Parry brings them together, the surprises and reveals she manages (with no real foreshadowing, which is excellent), yep, basically I love everything about this book.

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