★★★★

I’m going to be completely honest. I bought The Night Circus for its cover: a whimsical gallery of swirling black-and-white silhouettes, enlivened with splashes of scarlet.  Call me superficial: but, in this case, judging a book by its cover was a very good idea. This is Morgenstern’s first novel, but her writing style is already deft and economic, and she creates a series of vivid scenes that unfurl one after the other like flowers within flowers.

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