Nights at the CircusRecommendations

The Bloody Chamber, her celebrated novel about the escapades of a circus artist who is part-woman, part-swan, comes from the maestro of the literary uncanny.

Sophi Fevvers is an aerialiste extraordinaire and the star of Colonel Kearney's circus. She is the toast of Europe's cities, courted by the Prince of Wales, and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec. She's also a hybrid of a lady and a swan. An American journalist named Jack Walser is on a mission to figure out Fevvers' actual identity: is she half swan, half fake? Walser joins the circus on tour, enthralled by his love for Fevvers and yearning for the scoop of a lifetime. The adventure leads him—and the reader—on an enthralling tour through turn-of-the-century London, St. Petersburg, and Siberia, a tour that only Angela Carter could have imagined.

‍