The Family Fortuna

Eagar, Lindsay. The Family Fortuna. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780763692353.

Born into a circus family at the turn of the 20th century, Avita has always wanted to be more than what she looks like. Her nose and mouth are shaped like a crow's beak, and she has feathers sprouting from her shoulders and neck.  Known as bird girl by the patrons that support the circus, Avita attracts those who seek the freakish. Her tent is always full, and her performances are frighteningly inspiring. But what was fine when she was young is no longer okay as she becomes a teenager. Her father sees her as his prized possession, the most famous attraction from Texas to Tacoma, but ultimately she represents dollars and cents, not the love of a parent. Her mother is feeling detached, her deformed brother is the best accountant this side of Mississippi, and her older sister is a beauty who bares it all every night. The Fortuna family is crippled by their father's oversized ambitions. Avita wants to escape this reality, and shape her own performance, where people won't see her as an object of terror, but as someone who could be loved just like everyone else.

When the Fortuna's circus arrives in Peculiar, Texas, they find that another circus has already set up shop on the prime land reserved for such events. Trying to outdo the competition, Avita's father will stop at nothing to put on the greatest show on earth, but the cost, both in money and to his family, may be more than anyone else is prepared to pay. Avita will have to make a choice, stay with her father and the comfortable, or take a risk and strike on her own, with perhaps having nowhere to return.

Fans of the weird and the bizarre will appreciate this tale of a dysfunctional family like no other. Avita's ambitions drive her forward while her family is holding her back. With happiness always elusive, Avita will play the cards she's been given and hope that she can exceed expectations.

Bacchanal

Henry, Veronica G. Bacchanal. 2021. 352p. ISBN 9781542027816.

Eliza has always been able to talk with animals. Well, not talk, but at least communicate feelings and ideas. Unfortunately, her eagerness to communicate usually leads to the death of the animal, and Eliza has never figured out why this happens. Abandoned by her family, Eliza ends up living in a small rented room in a boarding house, doing odd cleaning jobs in the 1930s Baton Rouge. Born on the wrong side of the color line, Eliza has no prospects and no hope of ever reuniting with her younger sister ... until she is recruited by the Bacchanal Carnival, where she meets other African-American folks with strange and wonderful talents.

Tasked with figuring out a talent for the carnival, Eliza works with some of the artists and begins to grasp the limits of her power. But others also have strange powers, including the enigmatic resident of the red caravan. And everywhere the carnival goes, people die or disappear.

As the carnival travels through the South, encountering racism, Eliza continues to search for her sister. But finding her will put her in even more danger as the evil that dwells within the carnival is also searching for the growing threat that is Eliza ...