Young Tessa is a diminutive girl, far too small for farm work and the object of ridicule by both her own family and the other children in their isolated Midwestern community. Her father seems to believe in nothing beyond his crops, certainly not education for his misfit daughter. When a mysterious, entrancing librarian comes to town, full of fabulous stories, earthy wisdom and potions for the lovelorn, she takes Tessa under her wing, teaching her to read and to believe in herself, and a whole new magical world of possibilities opens up. But even as she blooms, Tessa's father begins sexually abusing her. And her mentor carries a dark secret of her own that finally causes her to drown herself. Tessa runs off, following Mary's footsteps, to join the circus as a trapeze artist, where she marries a loving man and finds a fulfilling life for herself amidst her new circus family. But she remains haunted by her past. And when a stranger from one of Mary's fabulist tales shows up, Tessa risks everything to follow him to Rain Village, where she might finally discover her mentor's tragic secret. A brilliantly evocative debut set in the early part of the 20th century, steeped in emotional turbulence and down-to-earth wisdom, where a young woman must reconcile the inner traumas from her past and learn to live in the present in order to avoid becoming prisoner to her future. Rain Village casts a fabulous spell, pulling us into a world of mystery and possibility where love, friendship and loyalty might either destroy or set one free.
"This reviewer kept turning the page, wanting to see what secrets Tessa would unravel."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The book offers great big heapings of magical realism à la Gabriel García Márquez, as well as beguiling eccentrics that bring to mind the characters of Jeffrey Eugenides. The novel centers on Tessa, a pint-sized misfit in a Midwestern farming town, who befriends a fable-spinning librarian who, in turn, spurs her to become a trapeze artist. a quixotic survival allegory that deftly explores the soc
SF Weekly
"Turgeon is the ringmaster of an epic tale of beauty and oddity in the astonishing tradition of Middlesex and Memoirs of a Geisha. Circ-lit at its most enthralling."
Jennifer Belle, author of Going Down and High Maintenance
