Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

"After Kitty Armstrong's mother vanishes from their Coney Island hotel in 1904, Kitty finds herself alone, hungry, penniless, and far away from her native England. The last people she'd expect to help her are the cast of characters at Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet, a museum of oddities that is home to a handful of freaks. But even the unusual inhabitants of Magruder's may not be a match for the insidious sickness that is plaguing Coney Island..."--

Reviews

"Be transported into another place and time in this magical debut novel." - POPSUGAR
"Exciting, fast-paced, and fascinating! " - Publishers Weekly
"A fast-paced tale of a historic amusement park under siege....Debut author Wood manages a large cast and a complicated story with a light touch and has a knack for capturing a character with a deft phrase." - Kirkus Reviews
"Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet is a book peopled by brilliant, larger-than-life characters that survive on the fringes of a society that despises the unusual or the different. These characters, and the world they inhabit, leap off the pages in glorious splendor, drawing the reader to dance in the light of their flames." - The Examiner
"A death-defying feat of creativity and imagination, Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet is gloriously original, colorful and alive. Wood's magnificent riot of unique turn-of-the-century characters -- fools and sages, snakes and saviors -- charmed me completely. Pick it up and it'll run away with your weekend and your heart." - Greer Macallister, bestselling author of The Magician's Lie
"...a fascinating and enlightening story. A great vacation novel..." - Booklist
"It's a rare novel that manages to combine humor,tragedy, powerful friendships, outcasts, insiders, detachedsatire, and deeply feltemotionall in one, but HP Wood's Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet manages to pull off the trick-- just don't ask how it's performed! Fascinating and deeply compelling...compulsively readable." - Lauren Willig,New York Times bestselling author of The Other Daughter
"Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet is an enchanting, darkly wondrous adventure. Beautiful and tragic, this stunning debut novel transports the reader to the heart of New York's Coney Island in the 1900s and the sideshow Unusuals who live there. Open Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet and prepare to be dazzled!" - Jennifer Kincheloe, author of The Secret Life of Anna Blanc
"I inhaledMagruder's Curiosity Cabinetin a single sitting. Wood has written a cracking Coney Island roller coaster of an adventure, full of marvelous, colorful, and unapologetically authentic characters. A bright, breathless debut." - Jessica Brockmole, author ofLetters from Skye
"Oh, how I adored this marvelous, magnificent, magical book! There aren't many books I'll lose sleep over, but this was one of them. This is a story that won't let you go - stuffed with gloriously quirky characters and brimming over with sumptuous sentences - a startlingly original debut novel." - Menna van Praag, author of The Dress Shop of Dreams and The Witches of Cambridge
"...very entertaining, and will keep you guessing right up until the end." - Historical Novels Review

Author Bio

H.P. Wood is the granddaughter of a mad inventor and a sideshow magician. Instead of making things disappear, she makes books of all shapes and sizes. She has written or edited works on an array of topics, including the history of the Internet, the future of human rights, and the total awesomeness of playing with sticks. She lives in Connecticut with a charming and patient husband, a daughter from whom she steals all her best ideas, and more cats than is strictly logical. You can find her at hpwood.net.