April reading theme: Circus Reads

DC Sam Shephard is stationed in Dunedin CIB, a newbie at the bottom of the pecking order. When a young university student is found battered to death and floating in the Leith, she is pushed to one side by her boss and only given grunt work. Despite this, it is Sam who discovers that there has bee...

1906. A high-spirited, unconventional girl who can turn her hand to anything, Molly Sparkes is on the verge of a big adventure. At just eighteen, she is leaving her convent school in the heart of rural Kent to accompany the formidable Mrs Alexa Nagel on a tour of Australia, acting as her companio...

This is the story of The Greatest Funambulist Who Ever Lived... Born into a post-war circus family, our nameless star was unwanted and forgotten, abandoned in the shadows of the big top. until the bright light of Serendipity Wilson threw her into focus. Now an adult, haunted by an incident in whi...

It's a busy time of year for Lord James Harrington and his wife Beth. Their good friends Bert and Gladys are getting married; James has a school reunion to attend; and he and Beth have entered the London-to-Brighton veteran car run.Before that, there's the Michaelmas Fair in the village to enjoy....

Once there was a mermaid called Amelia who could never be content in the sea, a mermaid who longed to know all the world and all its wonders, and so she came to live on land. Once there was a man called P. T. Barnum, a man who longed to make his fortune by selling the wondrous and miraculous, and...

A young woman trapped in Never Never Land leads a strike due to the unfair labor practices of the Lost Boys. Dorothy is blown away from Kansas and returns as a sophisticated woman with unusual gymnastic abilities. While forging an extraordinary sword, a talented apprentice falters and is left to ...

The suffragette movement is reaching fever pitch but for Frankie George, getting by in the cut-throat world of Fleet Street newspapers is hard enough. Sent to interview trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, Frankie finds herself fascinated by the tightly laced acrobat and follows her to a Mayfair corset ...

In the second half of the 19th century, Melbourne is a veritable boom town, as hopefuls from every corner of the globe flock to the gold fields of Victoria. And where people crave gold, they also crave entertainment. Enter stage right: brothers Will and Max Worthing and their wives Mabel and Gert...

In the second half of the 19th century, Melbourne is a veritable boom town, as hopefuls from every corner of the globe flock to the gold fields of Victoria. And where people crave gold, they also crave entertainment. Enter stage right: brothers Will and Max Worthing and their wives Mabel and Gert...

While many Australian teenagers have dreamed of joining a travelling circus, Norma Brophy wanted to run away from it. As a born and bred 'show person', she adored her early years on the road, running wild in town after town with her fellow little 'showies'. But growing up backstage of a famed tra...