The Delaney children Iris, Apollo, Diana, and Orion live in a sunlit garden with their beloved mother, playing among flowers and caring for small creatures. But illness steals their mother, and their father disappears into the Himalayas, leaving them at the mercy of a hard-hearted aunt. When the children are stolen by gypsies and sold to a circus, they must draw on every ounce of courage and loyalty to survive. This is Victorian adventure at its most bracing: a story that doesn't flinch from showing how cruelly fate can treat the young, yet never loses its faith in sisterly devotion and brotherly grit. Meade writes with sharp observation about childhood's small griefs and large heroics, creating characters whose mythological names seem to destine them for something epic. For readers who loved Little Women, The Secret Garden, or any Victorian tale where children face impossible odds and discover what they're made of.
