The Night Circus [Hardcover]

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is calledLe Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.Praise for THE NIGHT CIRCUS:

The Night Circusmade me happy. Playful and intensely imaginative,Erin Morgenstern has created the circus I have always longed forand she has populated it with dueling love-struck magicians, precocious kittens, hyper-elegant displays of beauty and complicated clocks. This is a marvelous book.
-- Audrey Niffenegger, author ofThe Time Traveler’s Wife

If this novel is just cotton candy, it's cotton candy spun from strands of edible silver...With no more lust than a late volume ofHarry Potter, Morgenstern manages to conjure up a love story for adults that feelsluxuriously romantic. When Celia calls their circus a 'wonder and comfort and mystery all together,' she could have been talking aboul3¦