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  • Location: Paris, France

The Ringmaster’s Daughter

The Ringmaster’s Daughter

Why a Booktrail?

1940: The city of lights has gone dark.

  • ISBN: B086T4JCHG
  • Genre: Historical

What you need to know before your trail

Twenty-year-old Michel Bonnet lives on the edge of the law, finding work where he can breaking in horses on the outskirts of Paris. But when the Nazis invade, Michel takes refuge as a stowaway on a rickety train bound for the rural south of France. It’s a journey that will change his life forever.

The train is property of Le Cirque Neumann – a travelling circus owned by the troubled and irritable showman Werner Neumann. Neumann offers Michel a job caring for the company’s horses – a lucky break, but with an unusual condition attached. Michel must keep to himself and never speak of what he sees behind the glittering curtain of the big top.

But as Michel finds himself pulled into the strange and wondrous world of the great spectacular it becomes more difficult to keep his promise. Why does the man with the performing monkey never speak, and the sword swallower turn his face away? Who are the silent, shadowy figures who flit like moths between the wagons when the sun is down? It’s clear that Neumann is keeping his performers hidden away… but why? And how can Michel win the love of the beautiful and exotic trapeze artist Freida – the graceful, green-eyed star of Neuman’s spectacular – when he’s been forbidden to even meet her gaze?

Travel Guide

Travel to Paris and the Circus with The Ringmaster’s Daughter

The Ringmaster’s Daughter was inspired by the moving true story of Adolf Althoff, an Austrian circus owner during World War II who bravely hid four members of the Jewish Danner family in his circus. On 2 January 1995, Yad Vashem recogised Adolf and his wife Maria as Righteous Among the Nations.

This story of selflessness in the fact of persecution called out to the author and she felt she had to tell the story in some way. The author was inspired by this story but hers and her characters are fictional.

The setting for this story is Paris and then the troupe leave the city and head south staying and passing through many villages and towns which remain unnamed. You get a keen sense of the countryside however!

Come join the most poignant circus you will ever experience!

BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Ringmaster’s Daughter

Destination/location: Paris, France  Author/guide: Carly Schabowski    Departure Time: 1940s

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