Circus of Mirrors

Author Julie Owen Moylan
Narrator Kristin Atherton
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 12 September 2024
Run Time 10 hours and 27 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Other performing arts, The Arts.

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BERLIN, 1926: After the death of their parents, sisters Leni and Annette only have each other. Desperate, but dreaming of better days, Leni finds work at a notorious cabaret: the Babylon Circus.

From the dancer’s barely-there costumes, to the glimmering mirrors that cover the walls, the Babylon Circus is where reality and fantasy merge. For Leni, it’s an overwhelming new world, and she’s happiest hiding in the shadows.

Until she meets the cabaret’s resident pianist, Paul. And so begins a tentative love affair that will play out over the next forty years. But, in a city whose divisions will define a century, can a love born within the feverish walls of the Babylon Circus ever survive? And can the bond between Leni and Annette – tugged in opposite directions of their own – also endure?

In Berlin, two sisters dared to dream of a better life – but where in this dark and dazzling city will they find their true home?

'Julie Owen Moylan writes about mid-20th century women like no-one else'
Laura Price

'Sexy, electrically stylish, and beautiful . . . a glamorous passport to a period we all long to get lost in'
Daisy Buchanan

'An almost unbearably poignant story of missed chances, long-hidden lies and women fighting the odds to grab happiness where they can'
Frances Quinn

'Immersive, tender, simmering with secrets'
Alex Hay

'An all-singing, all-dancing, moving and masterful book about two complex sisters living in incredibly complex times . . . Brilliant.' Anna Mazzola

©2024 Julie Owen Moylan (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Sexy, electrically stylish, and beautiful - a gorgeous story about sisterhood, and a glamorous, evocative passport to a period we all long to get lost in. Julie's such an incredible writer

Daisy Buchanan

What a brilliant tale of two sisters in Berlin. Atmospheric and the characters and flawed, complex and believable. Julie's best novel yet

Georgina Moore, author of The Garnett Girls

A tale of two sisters and a city, all three of them so vividly drawn, I felt I knew them. An almost unbearably poignant story of missed chances, long-hidden lies and women fighting the odds to grab happiness where they can. Superbly atmospheric, with convincingly flawed characters that just leap off the page

Frances Quinn

An all-singing, all-dancing, moving and masterful book about two complex sisters living in incredibly complex times. Mid-twentieth century Berlin and the glittering world of the Babylon Circus are brilliantly evoked and, as always with Julie Owen Moylan's writing, the characters - astutely rendered, flawed and convincing - live with us long after we've closed the book. Brilliant

Anna Mazzola

The sisters are terrific, unsentimentally and vividly portrayed. So, too, is Berlin, filled with menace, glitter and upcoming destruction. Bold and brave and absorbing

Elizabeth Buchan

What a brilliantly evocative, moving and emotionally affecting read. Leni and Nette's struggles and the twists and turns of their relationship were so well realised and had me absolutely gripped. The Babylon Circus shimmered off the page, I could picture it completely. I raced through the final pages late at night desperate to know what would happen!

Emma Hughes

Immersive, tender, simmering with secrets - and such a richly-drawn portrait of Berlin from 1926 to 1961

Alex Hay

With hints of Atonement, this is an epic novel, spanning decades as it explores with compassion and humanity the relationship of two sisters torn between the love and obligation they feel towards one another, and their desire for freedom and a better life that will split them apart. Itu2019s about secrets and hidden truths and the deep and long-lasting consequences of both. Above all itu2019s a story of missed opportunity, chance, guilt, love and forgiveness. I devoured this novel with its rich, vivid prose and its complex characters, tossed into conflict and dire circumstances through no fault of their own. A deeply thought-provoking and emotional story I will be thinking of long after I finished the final page. Utterly luminous

Louise Fein, author of The London Bookshop Affair

Set against the backdrop of the exotic nightclub of the title, The Circus of Mirrors is the story of two sisters, Leni and Annette, and their struggles to survive in a Berlin torn apart by first war, then communism. Moylan has researched her period thoroughly, and her characters are well drawn, drawing the reader on to a heart-breaking conclusion

Laura Shepperson

A sweeping saga of sisterhood, missed chances and a glittering circus sparkles fiercely against mid-20th century Berlin. Gorgeous and poignant. A captivating tale of two sisters that at turns dazzles and devastates

MA Kuzniar

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