The Legend of Smollet's Cirque du Grand Coup

In the mid-1800s, when the circus still captured the imaginations of dreamers and mathematicians alike, an ornery Frenchman's ragtag circus travels a bumpy trail from Brussels to Paris. Following the death of his parents, Ralph the Bird Boy chronicles his coming-of-age journey with Leonard Smollet's "merry band of improbabilities": Paul the puppeteer's mysterious past threatens to sabotage the circus; Sophie the tightrope walker struggles to deny her feelings for him; Blackenholz the magician will do anything to keep them apart. In a growing friendship with the loner puppeteer, Ralph learns the responsibility of harnessing the hidden power we all have within. But just as it seems they will make their mark in history at the Paris premiere, the dark necromancer Khia Khan Khruse arrives like a black cloud and threatens to destroy Smollet's Cirque du Grand Coup in a ball of fire befitting its name. Here is a tale you won't find in the history books.