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When the curtains are drawn back on the cabinet of wonders, every individual you meet is an original, the indelible mark of their uniqueness shaped in their flesh. Molly and Faye are spirited teenagers--and conjoined twins. Saffron is the Wolf Girl, her female form covered head to toe in fur. Alex/Alexandra is a seductive morphodite, her male/female parts irresistible to many. To the rubes that pay good coin to see them, they are Freaks. To the other carnies--those who run the Ferris Wheel, the Girl Show, and more--they are the Starlight Carnival Royale's most lucrative source of income, and sometimes, friends. To Shadrach the tattooed man of God who travels with them, they are evidence of the divine. For Dugan--scholar, businessman, romantic, and dwarf--the cabinet of wonders is more than just his business, it's his family and the center of his universe, and he'll do everything he can to keep it together...despite the rifts that are appearing after three years on the road.

Set in 1927, this marvelous tale confronts the spectacle of the Freak Show, steps through the curtains and out the other side, taking the reader to a candid, complex and human space where they can know outsiders as intimates.

Renee Dodd was born in Atlanta, and her childhood was divided between urban and rural Georgia, so that she spent as much time drawing in the High Museum as she did hunting arrowheads in the pine woods of Elsberry Mountain. Her grandfather was football hall of famer Coach Bobby Dodd--a big-hearted man and a wonderful storyteller. She has two incredibly supportive parents, a fantastic sister and sister-in-law, two brilliant nieces, a terrific husband, the most wonderful daughter in the world, and a sprawling extended family on paternal and maternal sides that is just as wonderful (and interesting) as it is huge.

Renee earned her M.F.A. in Fiction Writing at the University of Houston, where she learned to toughen up, and revise, revise, revise. She lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she sometimes teaches creative writing in person or online.