Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry
A ravishing first novel, set in vibrant, tumultuous turn-of-the-century New York City, where the lives of four outsiders become entwined, bringing irrevocable change to them all.New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs. Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother?s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her. A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum, sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both. As these strangers’ lives become increasingly connected, their stories and secrets unfold. Moving from the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular human circus to a brutal, terrifying asylum, Church of Marvels takes readers back to turn-of-the-century New York – a city of hardship and dreams, love and loneliness, hope and danger. In magnetic, luminous prose, Leslie Parry offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past in a narrative of astonishing beauty, full of wondrous enchantments, a marvelous debut that will leave readers breathless.
ISBN 9780062367563, Paperback
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Pick me please!
This sounds interesting!
Free book Friday!!
That sounds good!!
Sounds like a good one- thanks for a chance to win!
Hope to win.
Please consider me. Thanks.
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Fingers crossed!
I am interested in reading this book.
Thanks.
Yes please!
Sounds intriguing! I’m wondering how those separate characters will become entwined…
I read a non-fiction book about the history of Blackwell’s. Would love to check out this novel!
Sounds very interesting.
I love fictional history & I’m getting low on books to read. Would love to be picked for this one!
I love historical fiction and this book sounds like a winner!
I love to win.
Love these fateful historical novels! They challenge the imagination and inspire.
This sounds really good. I would love to have it!
Sounds like a good read.
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It looks good!
Wow…sounds like a good one to curl up with on a rainy day in your favorite reading chair…..
Hi, I would like a chance to try a book from a new to us author. Thank you.
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Looks excellent!
Would be interesting to read about New York City in 1895. My daughter, grandson and I went on a bus tour to NY two years ago so it would be fun to compare the differences, should I be lucky enough to win!
Please count me in!
Looks like an interesting book and not one I had heard of so I’d like to read!
Looks interesting!
Yes please
Me please!!!
Pretty, pretty please!!
Sounds like the makings for a movie.
using the word Church, increasing my interest in the meaning behind it
Very cool! I’ll have to put this on my wish list too (though I’m keeping my finger’s crossed to win it!). Thanks!
Happiness is a good book. 🙂
Mmmmm…love historical stories of this era. Wil be a great read. Exchange books with several friends, this would be an asset to our exchange! Thank you for choosing this book.
Just read “The Address” about the same time frame in NYC – would love to read more.
Happy Friday – thanks!
Happy 4th of July weekend!
Would like to read this book.
This sounds like a good book.
I’d love to read it. Thx for the opportunity to win.
I love free books.
Yes to reading!