My thanks to Elizabeth Macneal, Pan Macmillan, and Net Galley for the ARC of CIRCUS OF WONDERS.
Elizabeth Macneal's THE DOLL FACTORY, is in my top 20 favourite books ever, and I couldn't help wondering how she would follow this amazing novel. I think she has done it with Circus of Wonders. In the late 19th Century, physical deformities were very popular as entertainment. It would never happen now thank goodness, we are all hopefully more enlightened, but there is a strong history of showmen like Barnum making money from exactly this form of so-called entertainment. The author handles this difficult subject very well and if we put aside our revulsion. we see that this is not just a story about entertainment, but about the history of the time, when Queen Victoria was on the throne, that without money or an income you would be thrown to the wolves and power over your own future was nil unless you used the only thing you had. The ending is very heartening; that Nell takes control of her life and decides to continue in the world of circus, exploiting her disfigurement for her own benefit. Circus of Wonders has not eclipsed The Doll Factory in my opinion, but it is a fantastic read.

Welcome to the Circus in 1866, England!

I knew I was going to enjoy this as I absolutely adored The Doll Factory, and this story did not disappoint. As soon as I started reading, I was quickly drawn in and submerged into Victorian England where I was introduced to Nell, a flower grower from a small seaside village. This is where I began the journey of learning how Nell became 'The Queen of the Moon and the Stars' in Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders.

This wondrous story is filled with deceit, jealousy, secrets and obsessions and is told from three different points of view, Nell, Jasper the circus owner and ring master and Jasper’s brother Toby. Through each chapter the story unfolds and entwine together as we learn of their dark secrets, dreams and desires.

I was entranced by this spectacular story right up until the end, and what I felt is one of the most perfect endings I have read in a while. I highly recommend this to everyone who loved The Doll factory and anyone who enjoys being submerged into the dark and peculiar world of Victorian England.

The bar was raised high when Elizabeth Macneal’s captivating debut ‘The Doll Factory’ was published in 2019 and there’s no chance of it slipping with her second novel, ‘Circus of Wonders’. Indeed, we are taken higher still as we stare up at Nellie, Queen of the Moon and Stars, flying above the marvelling audience of Jasper Jupiter’s travelling circus.
Macneal immerses the reader in the grubby, exploitative, magical world of the Victorian circus, made famous by the likes of Barnum and Bailey. The public desire for ‘freaks of nature’ and for exotic animals appears to know no bounds and showman Jasper and his loyal brother Toby take full advantage of this, displaying elephants and zebras, monkeys and lions, Stella the bearded woman and Brunette, the female giant. However, when Nell, a young woman covered in birth marks, is sold by her father to Jasper, she becomes the latter’s pièce de resistance, swooping high above her audience, her Icarus wings adding to the ethereal fantasy: ‘…there is a freedom in her movements, as if she is unmooring herself from something… she is natural, she is real.’
Initially terrified and desperate to be rescued, Nell comes to revel in the attention, in the hitherto unknown sensation of being important. It takes her longer to appreciate that Jasper really does hold all the strings – to him, she is no more than a living, breathing puppet. However, the circus women become her allies and she slowly grows in self-worth, not least when others begin to rely on her.
Macneal recounts Nell’s time with the circus in the present tense, giving the narrative an immediacy and vigour reminiscent of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy. However, when we are taken to the Crimea where Jasper is a devil-may-care soldier and Toby a war photographer, she moves into the past tense. This war is from another world, another time, yet hugely influential on the brothers’ psyches now. Whilst we may shudder at the cruelty meted out to the circus exhibits, we also recognise what many men suffered for Queen and Country. The author does not spare us from the brutality, the terror and the immorality of life on the battlefield.
This is a story about the dispossessed, the outcast, the abused living on the margins of society who, as ever, are given little respect. It is also the story of sibling loyalty and rivalry, of tormentors and victims. And it is a story about the power of storytelling; the comfort found in the happy ending, the magic that heals, the rescued princess. Nevertheless, Nell, learning pragmatism, holds up her treasured tales to the light: ‘Every writer, Nell thinks, is a thief and a liar.’ If that’s the case, then long may Elizabeth Macneal continue to thieve and lie: another thought-provoking, moving, wondrous story from this talented author.
My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I’m not sure on my feelings of this book


Having birthmarks all over my own skin, I thought I’d relate to Nell.

However, I felt uncomfortable reading about someone with potentially the same condition or similar as myself being sold to a circus.


Writing is beautiful and detailed, it’s just I felt uneasy as I felt I could be reading about how I myself would have been seen it born another time.

Having recently read "The Doll Factory" by Elizabeth Macneal, I was keen to read "Circus of Wonders". It has parallels with PT Barnum's story, which at the moment is popular due to "The Greatest Showman". Fans of PT Barnum and his sideshow freaks should enjoy this story.

It follows Nell who is sold to Jasper Jupiter's Circus of Wonders and it follows the evolvement of her circus act and friendships she develops.

A touching story and I'm keen to read more Macneal when published.

Elizabeth Macneal’s debut was The Doll Factory. It was a fantastic historical mystery set in London in 1850 during the Great Exhibition.

The Circus of Wonders is another historical novel set in 1866, again in London and surrounds featuring a wide range of colourful so called ‘monsters’ and the circus Jasper Jupiter creates in his vision to be the best showman ever in that highly competitive market that saw the rise of the likes of Barnum and others.

Nell is a young woman inflicted with birthmarks in patches all over her body. She is tolerated in her poor village but still looked at with suspicion. When Jasper’s circus comes to town, her drunken father sells her to him and Jasper envisages her being the star of his show as he eagerly sets about designing sets and costumes. Eventually accepting her lot and discovering that all the ‘freaks’ have their own feeling of importance and place, she gradually grows in confidence and attracts more and more attention to the annoyance of Jasper whose hunger for power and control dominates him. But he also has a history he is trying to escape which is revealed gradually through the story and the eyes of his hulking, quiet and submissive brother with whom Nell falls in love.

This is a totally engrossing novel. Highly visual and beautifully written. It is a story about belonging, love, control, creativity, loyalty, family, loss, memory, desperation, theatre and imagination. The Victorian period was dominated by excess, voyeurism and fascination with the weird and strange. This book is not only a wonderful story, but gives the reader a snapshot of this ostentatious period of history.

I loved this book from start to finish. After the scars of the Crimean War, Jasper and his younger brother Toby fulfil a childhood dream of founding a circus – Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders, offering employment and a sense of community to a group of societies misfits. It’s 1866 and a young woman called Nell whose body is covered in leopard spot birthmarks, is sold by her drunken father to the circus. At first determined to run away, she soon realises that she has found a family who appreciate her uniqueness and soon Nell becomes a star. To Jasper who has always craved fame, Nell threatens to become more popular than him, and when Jasper realises that she has also won the heart of his younger brother, he decides to take action that will threaten the lives and livelihoods of all the performers. The Crimean backdrop was intriguing, a mysterious death of a comrade, is a dark secret that haunts the brothers. Nell, Stella and the other female performers are strong and I loved the ending when the women find their own way in the world

I was so excited about "Circus of Wonders" but also slightly apprehensive, because I really loved Elizabeth Macneal's first novel, so had high hopes from the start. And... I loved it!. This is the story of Nell, a young woman who lives a solitary life in a coastal village, separated from others by birthmarks covering her skin. When the circus visits her village, her father sells her to the owner, Jasper Jupiter. As she performs and her fame grows Nell needs to decide who is she and who gets to decide what happens with her.

From the start Nell is a complex character - she is timid but also wants to be seen, while at the same time she is scared and hurt by the way people are looking at her, and see only an object not a person. In her circus companions she finds a family people who are like her, in a way, and learns from them to see her worth in herself. There is a perfect mix of personality flaws in all the main characters, agenda and doubt, glitz and hard graft, and the hard work people put in to the show that the public don’t get to see. There is also love and a need to belong that the author explores very well.
On top of that, there are so many other themes in this book that are worth thinking about! There is a morbid fascination with people who are different (Victorians were famous for their obsession with “freak shows” and this is very visible in the book)! Then there is the search for fame and how easy it is to fall out of grace and how precarious people’s lives must have been. Another theme is the photography from the Crimea as a source of stories that can be shaped the way people want to see them without necessarily being truthful... Other characters are also very well portrayed, especially Toby, who also wants to belong so badly and is forced to choose sides numerous times.

I also loved the end of Nell’s journey in this book and I breathed the sigh of relief, that it was not too sweet and overdone, but somehow it had a positive vibe about it.

Altogether, it is a page turning piece of historical fiction in which Elizabeth Macneal shows not only her writing skills but also her ability to create stories that makes you ask questions.

Circus of Wonders is an astonishing story about power and ownership, fame, and the threat of invisibility.

We get to know the characters in-depth and well due to the story being told from different perspectives of all important characters. Without giving much away, this is the perfect book for those who enjoy a dark, horror, and victorian style thriller. I would recommend, the description is perfect and the book cover is eyecatching and would make me pick it up off the shelf in a bookshop.