I’m rather excited about this Rec League because it’s something I never knew I needed in my life until it was request. Thanks so much to Marisa for the Rec League email:
Having finally watched The Greatest Showman, I am dying for some circus themed romance. I’ve already read Water for Elephants and Amour Amour. I’m hoping there are more out there. Would love historical circus but would be open to anything. I already have The Night Circus on my to read list. Please tell me you have some suggestions!
Sarah: Making Up by Lucy Parker. The heroine is an aerialist like Cirque du Soliel
Elyse: I love The Greatest Showman soundtrack!
Isn’t there a vampire book where the heroine is in the circus?
Amanda: There’s an Anita Blake book called Circus of the Damned, but there’s no actual circus-ing going on.
Elyse: No, there’s another one!
Sarah: I cannot remember if I’ve read Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). I read so many of hers but while I do remember there was a circus, I don’t remember if I read it.
Elyse: Night Prince series by Jeananine Frost! The first book is Once Burned ( A | K | G | AB | Au ).
What romances would you recommend that have a circus theme?
Okay, there’s no romance in it that I can recall and it’s true that I’m only bringing this up for for a walk down memory lane but – Sweet Valley Twins “The Carnival Ghost.” It was under their ‘Super Chiller’ subheader.
For a book geared toward adolescents (remember, this was before Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield went to Sweet Valley High) it is *so* deliciously creepy! I used to read it over and over just to scare myself.
I mean, at 39, maybe it’s not that creepy now. But I bet it still is…!
An Unsuitable Heir by KJ Charles features twins the are aerialists in a circus like show.
N.J. Walters’ Hell’s Carnival series is all about paranormal shifters cursed into carousel animals in a travelling carnival. Its been a couple of years since I read them, but I remember gobbling them down one after the other
Two non-romance specific (is that even a term?)
A) From a High Tower, by Mercedes Lackey – A retelling of Rapunzel. The second half takes place in a Wild West Show traveling around Bohemia.
B) Carousel series by Sharon Lee (Carousel Tides, Carousel Sun, & Carousel Seas). About a carousel keeper in Maine and so much more.
The last couple books in Seanan in
Mguired incripted searies Magic for Nothing and Tricks for Free at least partially take place at the circus. They follow a family of historical momster hunters turned cryptozoologists and monster helpers. The circus books are the ones where baby sister Antimony is the main character but the earlier books are fun too and her older sister Verity is a ballroom dancer who likes to free run so its madcap and highflying too.
Absolutely, Positively by Jayne Anne Krentz features a hero who is in denial about his “gifts” despite the insistence of his carny family and adheres strictly to logic. So, not precisely a circus, but the Smoke and Mirrors Amusement Company does satisfy that same longing for wonder.
There’s a book called Spy Fall by Diana Quincy. It’s not the circus, but the heroine is a parachutist. It’s a historical.
@Maite, thanks for clarifying the details on “One Night With a Spy.” There were a lot of things I didn’t like about that book, so I haven’t read it more than once. The hero was annoying, the whole diary thing was overdone, etc. But I remembered the circus people.
Not a romance, but The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry is a mind-contorting novel with a mix of fantasy and mystery which also features a circus.
At least one of the Mrs. Pollifax Mysteries is set mainly at a circus, and it’s possible a second one returns there. They’re great fun, feel-good stories, but not romances, although sometimes there is a romantic element.
What about Neil Gaiman’s Mirrormask? It’s got a really great creepy circus vibe. Read the illustrated screenplay or watch the film.
Jeaniene Frost’s Night Prince series immediately came to mind when you mentioned a heroine who was in the circus.
I just want to say you all are amazing. I never expected so many possibilities when I requested this. Thank you all!
_The Catch Trap_ by Marion Zimmer Bradley features trapeze artists in a circus in the 1940s.