Another Dad-review. If you were wondering where I got my voracious appetite for books, now you know. Why he has forsaken beloved paper for that glowing screen of electrons, I can’t say.
Imagine, if you will, one day the field is empty, the next the circus is there. A cluster of black and white striped tents surrounded by a tall iron fence. You go to the main entrance where a sign states simply “Gate opens at Nightfall, closes at Dawn.” Over the entrance in Baroque letters is “Le Cirque des Reves. You wait impatiently for sundown when the gate opens and tickets are sold. You enter a magical world. Each tent contains a surprise. Some of the acts are magic, some more mundane, but all are the best you have ever seen. The circus stays for several days, then without warning it is gone, only to appear at a distant city without notice.
The circus is the venue, the stage for a contest between two powerful magicians. Each must select and train one apprentice and may only duel through that person. Neither apprentice knows who the other is or what he is doing. Naturally one apprentice is male, one female and they fall in love before they discover who their counterpart is. Both are bound magically to the circus and to the contest until a winner is determined. The rules are totally unclear as to how the struggle will end.
This book is a fantasy of magic, a love story, and the story of the people who imagined, planned, and created the circus. This book has joined that short shelf of books that I enjoy reading over and over. I also wish the circus really existed so I could hope it would come someday to a town near me.