When Delilah Marlow visits a famous traveling carnival, Metzger's Menagerie, she discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. Captured and put on exhibition, Delilah in her black swan burlesque costume "performs" in town after town. Despite the breathtaking beauty behind the seamy and grotesque reality of the carnival and despite the kindness of the cryptic handler Gallagher, she and her fellow menagerie of mermaids,...

Hottentot Venus focuses on Sarah Blaartman, an African tribewoman who, because of her prominent sexual characteristics, was paraded as a freak before audiences in England and Paris. This mesmerizing novel reflects the racism and cruelty of turn-of-the-century Eurocentric culture, but it also reveals Sarah's remarkable strength of spirit.

A contemporary American masterpiece about music, race, an unforgettable man, and an unreal America during the Civil War era. At the heart of this remarkable novel is Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth-century slave and improbable musical genius who performed under the name Blind Tom. Song of the Shank opens in 1866 as Tom and his guardian, Eliza Bethune, struggle to adjust to their fashionable apartment in the city in the aftermath of riots that...

Grace used to try to save people, but that was before she realized how powerless she is. Now, she avoids emotional ties, working from her secluded cabin, content with her aloneness. When eight-year-old Lily starts hanging around, Grace enjoys her company but carefully keeps her distance-until she discovers the girl is being exploited. Little though she wants to, she must get involved, even if it means risking her own safety to secure Lily's. Andrew...