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Riverhead
February 2014
On Sale: February 6, 2014
464 pages
ISBN: 1594486093
EAN: 9781594486098
Hardcover
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Historical
A lush and thrilling romantic fable about two lovers set against the scandalous burlesques, midnight sΓ©ances, and aerial ballets of the 1898 Omaha Worldβs Fair. On the eve of the 1898 Omaha Worldβs Fair, Ferret Skerritt, ventriloquist by trade, con man by birth, isnβt quite sure how it will change him or his city. Omaha still has the marks of a filthy Wild West town, even as it attempts to achieve the grandeur and respectability of nearby Chicago. But when he crosses paths with the beautiful and enigmatic Cecily, his whole purpose shifts and the fair becomes the backdrop to their love affair. One of a traveling troupe of actors that has descended on the city, Cecily works in the Midwayβs Chamber of Horrors, where she loses her head hourly on a guillotine playing Marie Antoinette. And after closing, she rushes off, clinging protectively to a mysterious carpetbag, never giving Ferret a second glance. But a moonlit ride on the swan gondola, a boat on the lagoon of the New White City, changes everything, and the fairβs magic begins to take its effect.
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