The Magician's Lie


Book Description

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "This is a book in which storylines twist, spiral and come together again in an ending as explosive as a poof of smoke from your chimney...or a top hat."—Oprah.com Master of historical fiction Greer Macallister weaves the tale of a notorious female illusionist who stands accused of her husband's murder—and she has only one night to convince a small-town policeman of her innocence. The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of the early 20th century, renowned for sawing a man in half on stage. One night in Waterloo, Iowa, with young policeman Virgil Holt in the audience, the magician swaps her trademark saw for a fire ax. Is it a new version of the illusion, or an all-too-real murder? When Arden's husband is found lifeless beneath the stage later that night, the answer seems clear. But when Virgil happens upon the fleeing magician and takes her into custody, she has a very different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden is far from powerless-and what she reveals seems unbelievable. Over the course of one eerie night, Virgil must decide whether to turn the illusionist in or set her free... and it will take all he has to see through the smoke and mirrors. Water for Elephants meets The Night Circus in The Magician's Lie, a spellbinding historical adventure of deception, fact, and the surprising number of truths in between. Also by Greer Macallister: Girl in Disguise Woman 99




The Magicians Lie


Book Description

Warning This is an independent addition to The Magician's Lie, meant to enhance your experience of the original book. If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. SUMMARY/ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION Come one, come all to read the tale of the Amazing Arden, famous female illusionist renowned across America for her daring new trick: sawing a man in half onstage. But, after her legendary performance in Waterloo, Iowa, the Amazing Arden's husband is found murdered by the same ax she used onstage - and Arden has disappeared. All suspicion is on her, and when Officer Virgil Holt, a young policeman desperate to prove himself, manages to capture her, he thinks all his problems might be solved. But Arden begs him to listen to her story, to let her prove her innocence. She begins to weave a fantastic tale, starting with her childhood and how she came to be one of the most popular magicians in the country. Despite his own agenda, Holt finds himself captivated by Arden's story - but is she simply creating the best illusion of her life? Readers will be just as captivated as Holt, as they struggle to decide whether or not the Amazing Arden can be trusted. On one hand, she is an intensely sympathetic character - a strong woman able to rise above trauma and the prejudices of her time to make waves in man's world. But on the other, she stands accused of a terrible crime, and is desperate for any way out. What is real, and what is merely smoke and mirrors? We all have to decide for ourselves. Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. (c) 2015 All Rights Reserved




Summary of the Magician's Lie


Book Description

Warning This is an independent addition to The Magician's Lie, meant to enhance your experience of the original book. If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. SUMMARY/ANALYSIS INTRODUCTION Come one, come all to read the tale of the Amazing Arden, famous female illusionist renowned across America for her daring new trick: sawing a man in half onstage. But, after her legendary performance in Waterloo, Iowa, the Amazing Arden's husband is found murdered by the same ax she used onstage - and Arden has disappeared. All suspicion is on her, and when Officer Virgil Holt, a young policeman desperate to prove himself, manages to capture her, he thinks all his problems might be solved. But Arden begs him to listen to her story, to let her prove her innocence. She begins to weave a fantastic tale, starting with her childhood and how she came to be one of the most popular magicians in the country. Despite his own agenda, Holt finds himself captivated by Arden's story - but is she simply creating the best illusion of her life? Readers will be just as captivated as Holt, as they struggle to decide whether or not the Amazing Arden can be trusted. On one hand, she is an intensely sympathetic character - a strong woman able to rise above trauma and the prejudices of her time to make waves in man's world. But on the other, she stands accused of a terrible crime, and is desperate for any way out. What is real, and what is merely smoke and mirrors? We all have to decide for ourselves. Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. (c) 2015 All Rights Reserved




Girl in Disguise


Book Description

From the USA Today Bestselling author of The Magician's Lie "Macallister is becoming a leading voice in strong, female-driven historical fiction. Exciting, frightening, and unspeakably moving..."—Erika Robuck, bestselling author of Hemingways's Girl For the first daring female Pinkerton detective, respect is hard to come by, but danger and spies are everywhere. In the tumultuous years of the Civil War, the streets of Chicago offer a woman mostly danger and ruin—unless that woman is Kate Warne. As an undercover Pinkerton detective, Kate is able to infiltrate the seedy side of the city in disguises that her fellow spies just can't manage. She's a seductress, an exotic foreign medium, a rich train passenger—all depending on the day and the robber, thief, or murderer she's been assigned to nab. But is it only her detective work that makes her a daring spy and a clever liar? Or is the real disguise the good girl she always thought she was? As the Civil War marches closer, Kate takes on her most pressing job ever. The nation's future is at risk, and she's no longer sure where her disguise ends and the very real danger begins. With magnificent historical detail, Girl in Disguise brings the adventures of one turn-of-the-century woman to tense, page-turning life. Also by Greer Macallister: The Magician's Lie Woman 99




AMORALMAN


Book Description

Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin. But who's flipping it? A thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining work of nonfiction from one of the world's leading deceivers, the creator and star of the astonishing theater show and forthcoming film In & Of Itself. Derek DelGaudio believed he was a decent, honest man. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, his memories are reawakened and Derek is forced to confront--and try to understand--his role in a significant act of deception from his past. Using his youthful notebook entries as a road map, Derek embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey, retracing the path that led him to a world populated by charlatans, card cheats, and con artists. As stories are peeled away and artifices are revealed, Derek examines the mystery behind his father's vanishing act, the secret he inherited from his mother, the obsession he developed with sleight-of-hand that shaped his future, and the affinity he felt for the professional swindlers who taught him how to deceive others. And once he finds himself working as a crooked dealer in a big-money Hollywood card game, Derek begins to question his own sense of morality, and discovers that even a master of deception can find himself trapped inside an illusion. A M O R A L M A N is a wildly engaging exploration of the fictions we live as truths. It is ultimately a book about the lies we tell ourselves and the realities we manufacture in others.




Woman 99


Book Description

"Woman 99 is a gorgeous ode to the power of female courage."—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network A vivid historical thriller about a young woman whose quest to free her sister from an infamous insane asylum risks her sanity, her safety, and her life. When Charlotte Smith's wealthy parents commit her beloved sister Phoebe to the infamous Goldengrove Asylum, Charlotte knows there's more to the story than madness. She commits herself to the insane asylum, surrendering her real identity as a privileged young lady of San Francisco society to become a nameless inmate, Woman 99. The longer she stays, the more she realizes that many of the women of Goldengrove Asylum aren't insane, merely inconvenient—and her search for the truth threatens to dig up secrets that some very powerful people would do anything to keep. Inspired by the investigative journalism of Nellie Bly, and other true accounts of 19th century insane asylums. Rich in detail, deception, and revelation, Woman 99 is historical fiction that honors the fierce women of the past, born into a world that denied them power but underestimated their strength.




The Arctic Fury


Book Description

A dozen women join a secret 1850s Arctic expedition—and a sensational murder trial unfolds when some of them don't come back. Eccentric Lady Jane Franklin makes an outlandish offer to adventurer Virginia Reeve: take a dozen women, trek into the Arctic, and find her husband's lost expedition. Four parties have failed to find him, and Lady Franklin wants a radical new approach: put the women in charge. A year later, Virginia stands trial for murder. Survivors of the expedition willing to publicly support her sit in the front row. There are only five. What happened out there on the ice? Set against the unforgiving backdrop of one of the world's most inhospitable locations, USA Today bestselling author Greer Macallister uses the true story of Lady Jane Franklin's tireless attempts to find her husband's lost expedition as a jumping-off point to spin a tale of bravery, intrigue, perseverance and hope.




The Magician's Book


Book Description

Enchanted by Narnia's fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an adult to uncover the source of these small books' mysterious power by looking at their creator, Clive Staples Lewis. What she discovers is not the familiar, idealized image of the author, but a more interesting and ambiguous truth: Lewis's tragic and troubled childhood, his unconventional love life, and his intense but ultimately doomed friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a lifelong adventure in books, art, and the imagination.




The Magicians


Book Description

Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin “Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill “A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.” —John Green “The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.” —Cory Doctorow “This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.” —The New Yorker “The best urban fantasy in years.” —A.V. Club Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . . The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.




The Illusionist's Apprentice


Book Description

Set during one of the richest, most vibrant eras in American history, this Jazz Age novel tracks Houdini's assistant in a world of misdirection, suspense, and forgotten pasts to remind us that not all illusions happen on the stage. Wren Lockhart, apprentice to master illusionist Harry Houdini, uses life on a vaudeville stage to escape the pain of her past. She continues her career of illusion after her mentor's death, intent on burying her true identity. But when a rival performer's act goes tragically wrong, the newly formed FBI calls on Wren to speak the truth--and reveal her real name to the world. She transfers her skills for misdirection from the stage to the back halls of vaudeville, as she finds herself the unlikely partner in the FBI's investigation. All the while Houdini's words echo in her mind: Whatever occurs, the crowd must believe it's what you meant to happen. She knows that if anyone digs too deep, secrets long kept hidden may find their way to the surface--and shatter her carefully controlled world. Historical fiction with a dash of suspense Stand-alone novel Book length: 99,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs