A novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there...

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or...

Tom tells all about his bicycle, his ride to work past trucks, cars, and even elephants, and his job as a circus performer.

The stork delivers a baby elephant to Mrs. Jumbo, who happens to be a veteran of the circus, but the newborn is soon ridiculed because of his truly gigantic ears and is dubbed "Dumbo". Dumbo is relegated to the circus' clown acts. It is up to Dumbo's only true friend, Timothy Q. Mouse, to assist Dumbo to achieve his full potential.

A large, spotted animal discovers he really belongs in a circus, not a zoo.

Pretty, flighty Daisy Devreaux can either go to jail or marry the mystery man her father has chosen for her. Arranged marriages don't happen in the modern world, so how did the irrepressible Daisy find herself in this fix?

Alex Markov, as humorless as he is deadly handsome, has no intention of playing the loving bridegroom to a spoiled little feather-head with champagne tastes. He drags Daisy from her uptown life to a broken

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To escape a burning building, Zapfino must confront the fears that forced him out of the circus.

"When all is lost, how do you find the courage to keep moving forward? 1938. Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus, even as the daughter of the extraordinary headlining illusionist, Theo. Brilliant and curious, Lena--who uses a wheelchair after a childhood bout with polio--yearns for the real-world magic of science and medicine, her mind stronger than the limitations placed on her by society. Then her unconventional life...

Over a half century, a small Indiana town hosts a circus troupe during the off-seasons in linked stories "as graceful as any acrobat's high-wire act" (San Francisco Chronicle).
A Story Prize Finalist
From 1884 to 1939, the Great Porter Circus made the unlikely choice to winter in an Indiana town called Lima, a place that feels as classic as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and as wondrous as a first trip to the Big...

Many clowns in colorful costumes are riding on Circus Train.