First of all, what a beautiful cover!!!

Mara has been a part of the circus for ages with her mom who's dating the owner. The whole circus becomes her family and she's learned to accept them for their differences. But she's never stayed long enough in one place to forge bonds and make a life for herself. In desperate need of money, the circus books a whole week in a town. But when members of the circus start to vanish and others get attacked everyone wants to get out of the town. The problem is they only get paid on their last day and they don't have enough money to even get out of the town. But they all feel that something is incredibly wrong with the place. While Mara starts to fall for Gabe, more and more attacks happen and it's not long before she figures out that Gabe is hiding secrets of his own...



This book was weird. And i guess that was the point because it was pretty awesome!




Mara was pretty likable but she was quite bitter about being on the move all the time. Some part of her felt sad that she never stayed in a place long enough to make her own bonds even though the circus was like her family. I wouldn't say that she was ashamed of being a part of the circus knowingly because she loved her friends but it was more like she was afraid of being judged as only being part of a circus filled with people that didn't do normal things. As for Mara she doesn't have an active gift so she kind of helps out by selling tickets and setting the circus up.

I'm not sure how i feel about the romance. I wasn't really impressed by it and i didn't hate it either. Things move pretty fast between Mara and Gabe since they're already making out after their first meeting but it's not exactly insta-love. But it was kinda sweet with Mara feeling insecure about opening up her heart and letting Gabe see that she was part of a freak circus. She was afraid of being judged so it was refreshing for Gabe not to follow the trend.

Pacing wise it was really enjoyable. The mystery drags on throughout the book but i feel like the last 10% was rushed...the explanations came in a hurry and i would have liked it better if there was more of a buildup throughout the book to finally realise in the end what was happening to the circus. It felt a little rushed and thrown together especially the part about Gabe, it just came out of nowhere. That being said i wasn't expecting the ending at all so it did come as a shock!

But i LOVED the circus world building and each of the characters! It was a really interesting read!
And it's a standalone!!