7 Dazzling and Irresistable Books Set in Theme Parks and Circuses

“[An] exquisite story collection” about one circus over the course of 55 years, from 1885 to 1939 (The Washington Post). This “sublimely imaginative and affecting” debut book from author Cathy Day centers around the Great Porter Circus which spends its winters performing in the small town of Lima, Indiana (The Boston Globe). 

Each story focuses on a different character and their experiences with the circus. Together these stories create a collection that is a magical mosaic image of the circus, tied together by rich prose and compelling storytelling. 

This exciting novel by Robert Hough is based on the real life figure of Mabel Stark, the greatest tiger trainer in history and a star of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circuses in the ‘20s. In this book, called “one of the most rollicking, good-time books of the year” by USA Today, an eighty year old Mabel is looking back on her adventurous life that brought her into the big tent and her wild days working with the tigers. 

Told “with a saucy, bouncy verve,” Mabel’s stories and confessions are both uproariously amusing and heartbreaking, as she retells the story of the bold, sexual, and extremely brave woman she once was (Time Out New York). 

An enchanting New York Times-bestselling novel about Le Cirque des Rêves, a circus that contains many wonders and is only open at night. The story is centralized around an ongoing battle between two magicians, Celia and Marco. Both have trained their whole lives in magic to overtake the other, and yet they both fall deeply and passionately in love. 

Morgenstern weaves descriptions and decadent details to imbue the reader with a sense of wonder and make them feel like they are standing under the big tent themselves in this “dark and extravagantly imagined” novel (People). 

On her eighteenth birthday, Anna breaks her mother’s rules for the first time and goes to Astroland, Florida’s biggest theme park, which feels eerily familiar. On the fifteenth anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, Rosie seeks to solve the mystery of the missing girl on her own. 

The lives of these two teenage girls are deeply intertwined as they both uncover long hidden secrets and learn the significance of Astroland. This deeply emotional, psychological mystery from Lizzy Barber is “a fast-moving tale of good and evil, obsession and sacrifice” (Publishers Weekly). 

Kevin Lonnegan, an ex-cop working as a private investigator, is called to the scene after two people are found strangled to death at Orlando’s third largest theme park, Empire Realm. Kevin goes undercover as a worker in the park to catch the killer on the loose. 

Readers will be transported to the dirty underside of a familiar locale, under the unbearable heat of the Florida sun and to the sound of haunting merry-go-round music. This riveting mystery builds up to an edge-of-your-seat ending. 

Six teenage girls are magically summoned to an abandoned amusement park in the middle of the night. They learn that they are the Chosen Ones, chosen to fight off an evil that is hunting them. The girls are not friends and fall in different spots in the hierarchy of high school, but they must all work together to defeat the spirit using their newly discovered magical powers. 

Incorporating real struggles of adolescence with an otherworldly enemy and a magical atmosphere, The Circle is an all encompassing read that cannot be put down until the last page is turned.

When New Mexico rancher Miles Waddell inherits 330 million dollars, he builds his dream: an amusement park devoted entirely to astronomy, NightZone. The dream is cut short when eco terrorists cut down the power lines that lead to the park. Bill Gastner, the retired sheriff of Posadas County, New Mexico and the protagonist of many of Havill’s books, gets caught up in the case when he witnesses one of the culprits fleeing town.