CHURCH MARVELS Paperback – April 29, 2016

Dramatic, charming- the tale that wends its way through historic New York is a mystery shrouded in the wonder of connection. Absolutely a delicious Must-read!

Mrs. M. Hopman 6/10/2016Format: Kindle EditionWhat a privilege to become acquainted with author, Leslie Parry’s, writing style. A member of the group of Iowa Writers, Parry has the courage to push the envelope and she paints a ‘word canvas’ with out-of-the-box colors. Each of the three people in her novel, Church of Marvels, has a strange affliction.The story is told through the eyes of three people: Sylvan, 19, a night soiler, has the job of cleaning out commodes behind the tenement houses. One evening he finds an abandoned baby girl and brings her home with him.Alphie is the most genuine in character development. Full of spunk and leading a duplicitous life. When Alphie ends up in a lunatic asylum outside New York City, the reader knows she will make an escape. The evil eye of Alphie’s mother-in-law convinces Alphie that she was the one who had her committed. With no intention on staying in the asylum, Alphie takes the reader inside the stark reality. Turn-of-the-century insane asylum is portrayed as a dark, depressing institution where inmates are treated with brutal cruelty.Finally, the trio is rounded out by Odile. Under the thumb of a mother who owns a circus of freaks, Odile grows up spinning on a wheel as knives are wielded at her. The act is only one dimension of an overall accursed and unhappy childhood. After a fire, she goes to Coney Island in search of her sister, Bella. Her sister has vanished. Odile’s Odyssey to find Bella brings her in contact with some of the weirdest people, places and events.Without revealing the surprises as the plot unfurls, be prepared, dear reader, for flights of fancy and unexpected twists and turns.The writing is incredibly descriptive and lyrical. When a book walks in with a good plot base and an in your face spine, you will get interested.

Quirky, colorful characters inhabit the enjoyable novel se in late nineteenth century New York. Parry's novel opens with a strange discovery. Sylvan, a night soiler finds an infant abandoned in a privy. Meanwhile, on the distant shores of Coney Island, Odile is struggling to survive a double loss. And, on the sliver of land now called Roosevelt Island, another young woman is waking in the nightmare of a lunatic asylum. Theses stories are, of course, closely linked. A shadowy transaction takes place and these three characters are caught up in the aftermath. Parry excels in character development. The writing is often exquisite and Parry's imagery is breath-taking. She has woven an inventive and ingenious plot that carries along its characters' secrets and builds up to a fine level of suspense. I can still visualize and smell the stench that was the lower East side and Coney Island . It's just the book that will transport you to another world.

As a major fan of stories about turn of the 20th century New York, I was immediately drawn to this much praised first novel. Ms Parry has obviously done her homework; the sheer volume of detail is impressive, if at times a little hard to absorb. There is so much dirt, noise, repulsive odors and mayhem taking place all the time on the streets of the city, it's a wonder anyone survived without losing his mind.Which brings me to the meat of my review. The intertwined stories are fantastic, in the sense of out of the ordinary. The machinations of Party's imagination are wondrous indeed. I read the book in one sitting. The characters were well defined and irresistible. I had to know how the characters were going to get out of the myriad dire situations they got themselves into. At times, it was hard to keep reading. There is such horror, degradation and utter disregard for life and humanity; there were times I longed for one scene depicting the glories of New York in 1895. And there were many. But Parry chose to focus on the poor, strange, queer and disenfranchised, ad this she does relentlessly well.If you're up for a roller coaster ride of fascinating tragi-comedy, well written and absorbing, I recommend you give this unique novel a read.

For the first half of this dark novel, I wasn't sure how the characters could possibly come together, but they did. There were many disturbing images of the people and living conditions but the characters were well developed and the author's writing made me want to keep reading to find out what happened to everyone. I won't summarize the book, you can find that elsewhere, but will say that you are rooting for the main characters, hoping they somehow find some happiness in their lives. Not an upbeat novel, but I'm glad I kept reading.

This haunting tale is wonderfully crafted, with a slew of unusual characters, each to me, if not at first, ultimately sympathetic. Parry introduces these characters early on, while the reader can only surmise what the ultimate connections will be. Not preoccupied or distracted by that, I read on hungrily.The narrative is exquisitely bookended (no pun intended) with a prologue and epilogue in the voice of Belle, one of the twin sisters around whom the plot revolves. In the epilogue the reader’s sensitivity is heightened just by learning about their mother, who had the guts and audacity to avenge her brother’s death in the Civil War by disguising herself as a young man to get to the front. That charade foreshadows the dark and often twisted events that we encounter after the mother’s death by fire in 1899.Having grown up under their mother’s tutelage at her Coney Island sideshow, twins Odile and Belle are differently-abled but as close as twin sisters can be. When Belle disappears, Odile is determined to find her and be re-united. A cryptic letter from Belle propels Odile to Manhattan where the story really takes off, and the characters gradually converge.Parry is skilled and patient, slowly and competently moving the plot forward while revealing more detail, glimpse by glimpse. Dark and graphic at times? Yes. Unsettling? That too. But a very worthwhile read.

Unusual storyline. Very entertaining book.

Firstly, let’s be clear about something: I loved EVERYTHING about this book. The writing, the story, the character names and THAT cover - just how perfect can one book be?Inside this gorgeous cover spins an atmospheric world where the writing is sublime. As I strolled with wide-eyes throughout this book I could almost hear the echoing clop of hooves, whiff the lingering grime in the air and sense the occasional moan from an opium den.It’s a vivid tale that will test the strongest resolve and prod the hardest of hearts.You think with a title like the Church of Marvels that this will be a tale of curiosity for amusement. But it’s filled with grit, hardship and cruelty. Yet astonishingly, skulking in the shadows of unseemly pits of despair there is also a glimmer of hope.Like the points on a compass the paths of Belle, Odile, Alphine, Sylvan (and his miraculous discovery of an abandoned child) are magnetised in the same direction, until they all arrive at the same point in the story - and it's SO beautifully done.If you like to unravel secrets and experience an abundance of atmosphere, then this book is a dream come true. For me, it was simply flawless and will sit quite easily among my top five reads of this year.(I initially received a copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes, so a huge thank you to the publisher. But I adored it so much I just had to purchase the Hardback copy to keep.)

I really enjoyed this book. The descriptive prose gets a bit much at times, but I loved the story and how it all unfolded with a few surprises.

It definetly is a really good book and it kept me interested the whole time anticipating how everything would get unravelled. Not the cheeriest of stories but I couldn't put it down!

A puzzling book