From Constance Sayers, author of A WITCH IN TIME, comes THE LADIES OF THE SECRET CIRCUS, a spellbinding, magical tale that spans lifetimes and realms as it follows the most fantastical circus imaginable.

On the night before her wedding, Lara Barnes is like any anxious bride: trying on her dress, regretting the color, shape and style, and gearing up to spend a night away from her fiancé, Todd, before their big day. Unlike (most) other brides, however, when she decides that her dress is not the right shade of ivory, she uses magic to fix it. By simply wishing for the dress to change in color and shape, it reacts accordingly --- but Lara’s magic is only an act of illusion, one that her mother, Audrey, reminds her takes a great amount of focus to keep up, especially during a high-stress event like a wedding. Descendants of the infamous Le Cirque Margot, a retired circus run and performed by Lara’s grandmother and great-grandmother, Lara and Audrey are not witches, exactly, but have carried magic through their bloodline and use it periodically to make life more convenient.

"Sayers combines dark magic with swoon-worthy love stories and cuts through them both with shocking familial betrayals and sacrifices that give a sharp edge to this mesmerizing fantasy."

On the day of her wedding, Lara, looking bewitching in the perfect dress, is ready to start the rest of her life with Todd, but there’s one big problem: Todd has gone missing. Audrey, never a fan of Todd’s, is not surprised that her daughter’s unfaithful partner has disappeared. But when his car is discovered a few days later, it’s obvious that something has gone wrong. As the town sheriff, Ben Archer, discovers, the location where Todd’s car was found is the same spot where another young man vanished 30 years to the day and was never found. Lara suspects that her mother knows more than she is saying about both disappearances, and when she learns that the last man to vanish was connected to her family, she starts to wonder about her magical bloodline.

Several months later, Lara has thrown herself into working on her new home and business. But as her magical powers grow in strength and intensity, she recalls a mysterious visitor from her childhood. Althacazur not only knew Lara’s grandmother, he introduced her to her own magic and told her that he had plans for her one day. As strange occurrences keep happening around her and Althacazur makes another ominous appearance, Lara finds herself drawn into her great-grandmother Cecile’s past, and the mysterious story of a secret circus, Le Cirque Secret, visible only to those granted access by magical tickets. After finding Cecile’s diary, Lara realizes that there may be more truth to the wondrous story of Le Cirque Secret than the women in her family have let on, and that her fate is bound to her ability to unravel its many mysteries.

As the mystery of Todd’s disappearance starts to blend with the secrets of her family’s history, Lara finds herself traveling to Paris, ostensibly to verify the authenticity of a portrait of her great-grandmother, but also to investigate the place where Le Cirque Secret was last seen. Alternating between Lara’s life in the present and Cecile’s diary, Sayers immerses her readers in both circus life and a world of witchcraft, demons and unimaginable horrors where nothing can survive unharmed, including an ill-fated love between a young circus performer and a brilliant --- but mortal --- artist. Every sentence is brimming with magic, and every scene is perfectly weird, terrifying and awe-inspiring. Sayers takes the already limitless bounds of the circus, a place where anything is possible, and pushes it to new ends, leaping between this world and another and showing the dangerous ways that magic has fragmented both.

At a whopping 452 pages, THE LADIES OF THE SECRET CIRCUS is no quick read, and I must admit that I found the opening very slow. Lara, while arguably the main character, is not as compelling as I might have liked, and with the first third of the book largely focusing on her and the cancelation of her wedding, it was difficult to push on. But that all changes with the appearance of Cecile’s diary. In Cecile and the other supporting characters, Sayers truly shines: their personalities are distinct and their character arcs rich. Although Lara drives the narrative, Cecile, her sister Esme and even Lara’s mother truly make it memorable. Adding to the weight that they lend the narrative are the scenes from Le Cirque Secret. Set in 1920s Paris, they are so full of historical details --- and famous, recognizable characters like Hemingway and Picasso --- that they transcend the border between magic and reality perfectly, bringing to mind classics like A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

It is nearly impossible not to be interested in the idea of a secret magic circus, and in this regard, Sayers more than delivers. Her imagery is vivid, and her imagination feels like a thing of magic. Le Cirque Secret --- and even its real-world counterpart, Le Cirque Margot --- will absolutely sweep you away. Cecile, Esme and even Althacazur will captivate you and tug at your heartstrings, while the mysteries and secrets between them twist, turn and unravel. Sayers combines dark magic with swoon-worthy love stories and cuts through them both with shocking familial betrayals and sacrifices that give a sharp edge to this mesmerizing fantasy.

Though Lara fell flat for me, and some of the dialogue was a bit mawkish, THE LADIES OF THE SECRET CIRCUS is a dazzling, decadent story that will keep readers begging for more from Constance Sayers.