The Family Fortuna

Written by Lindsay Eagar

Narrated by Maria Liatis

“Yes, my angel, what a monster you are!”

Beaked. Feathered. Monstrous. Avita was born to be a star. Her circus tent sells out nightly, and every performance incites bloodcurdling screams. She’s the most lucrative act from Texas to Tacoma, the crown jewel of the Family Fortuna.

Avita feeds on the fear, the screams, the gasps. But when a handsome young artist is commissioned to create new posters of the performers, Avita is appalled by his rendering of Bird Girl. Is that truly all she is—a hideous monster, all sharp beak and razor teeth, obsidian eyes and ruffled feathers?

Avita’s ready to be more. But her father, Arturo Fortuna, proprietor and ringmaster of the Family Fortuna, won’t give up his most popular attraction without a fight.

And Avita’s not the only one clamoring to be released from Arturo’s manipulative cage. Her sister, her brother, and even her mother are all tired of sacrificing everything for Arturo’s ambitions and his craving for cash. Will their fragile family ties survive the tension of a circus showdown?

Delightful and disturbing, bawdy and breathtaking, horrific and heartfelt, this electric and exquisitely crafted story about a family like no other challenges our every notion of what it means to be different.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781705098776

Reviews for The Family Fortuna

[mims0229googlemail.com · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well written and narrated book with interesting views. Would highly recommend

[whitreidtan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've never really been a fan of circuses, real or imagined. I definitely don't search them out in my reading but so many people love books about them that I keep trying them despite knowing that they are likely to be a miss for me. Unfortunately, that is the case here. I found Lindsay Eagar's The Family Fortuna slightly off-kilter, slightly disturbing, and honestly, slightly boring.The Family Fortuna is a traveling circus that travels the West. Arturo Fortuna is the patriarch of the family and ringmaster but youngest daughter, Avita, is the headliner and star of the entire spectacle. She is a monstrous, feathered and beaked girl whose snarling, chicken slaughtering show terrifies and thrills and rakes in money. She delights in being able to inspire fear, horror, and nightmares until she sees a young man who does not gasp at her theatrics. He is an artist and he might just see her inner person, beyond the freak of circus hype, so she helps him get a commission to paint new posters for the show. She is convinced he will expose the truth of her humanity. What he shows her is other people's perception of her, which pushes her to find a way to become the person she wants to be, all while there are crises, large and small, financial and personal, brewing in the circus as a whole.This YA novel is incredibly character driven, to the point that it is almost plotless. Avita and her search for freedom and an authentic sense of self are the main focus. There are occasional shifts to other characters, emotionally abusive, narcissistic father Arturo; long-suffering, superstitious and religious Mama; older sister Luna, who is the silvery, stunning goddess who rules over the kootchy girl tent; and older brother Ren, who is a little person (non-performing) and the circus' frugal accountant. The chapters from the other characters are so few in number that they seem like interruptions to the story and don't truly serve to fully flesh those characters out. There is an antique feel to the whole story, and a feeling that the reader shouldn't look beyond the illusions or too closely at the peeling paint in the shadows here. The writing is filled with florid descriptions, similes, and metaphors in the way that a circus barker or ringmaster might exaggerate in their patter but it comes off as slightly ridiculous and strange on the page. Those who enjoy circus-set stories might like this overly long novel far better than I did; I just wasn't drawn into the grotesquerie.