Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced release copy in exchange for my honest review.

This novel grabbed my attention and kept me guessing until the last possible moment. With lots of mystery, suspense, and just the right amount of spookiness, you can't ask for more! 
 The imagery makes you feel tlike you can actually see the characters and scenes unfolding. I loved the dual timeline and the atypical heroes!  I can definitely see this book going in the reread pile!

The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus has been on my TBR list for awhile and I am so glad that some winter weather permitted me time to sink into it! Jaime Jo Wright's novel is a romance, a mystery, and a love story all in one. It is the love story between a mother and her child, a father and his child, but most importantly, between God and His created children. The story floats between two time periods, rather effortlessly. Pippa is the adopted daughter of the owner of Bonaventure Circus in the 1920's and is supposed to marry her father's business partner.  However, Pippa's blood is in the circus itself; it is where she came from. As she grows closer to the people and creatures  that bring the circus to life, she is drawn more and more to another man, one she isn't supposed to want. She is also brought closer to The Watchman, who seems to know all about her but seems to expect something from her. When rumors abound that the Watchman is killing women on the circus tours, she is unsure what to think or who to trust. 
Chandler is a young mother in current times, battling an autoimmune disease and trying to raise her son on her own. When Chandler is going to renovate the old circus grounds and the train depot, she and Hank, a the nephew of her landlord, stumble upon more than just circus treasures. Clues to the murders that plagued the circus route in Pippa's time and a long dead body bring more than trouble. When Chandler's son is kidnapped, it is a fight against time to figure out why and by who and where he is. 
Seamlessly moving between the two time periods, I was completely taken in by the story. I was caught off guard by the identity of the Watchman and the kidnapper. The writing itself was lovely, the prose beautiful and I could see what I was reading. Mostly, though, the love of God was evident in the writing. His love for His creation, for His children, was ever=present. 
Thanks to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book. I am looking forward to more by #JaimeJoWright.
#Bookstagram #Hauntingatbonaventurecircus #all_the_pages

It’s a rare book that stays in the mind long after you have read it, and this is that book. Fascinating story told masterfully, and would recommend highly.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus
by jamie Jo Wright

I had high hopes for this book. I liked the book description, the plot and was familiar with the author. Unfortunately, I found the book to be a bit boring. I liked the duel time line idea and the historical aspect of the story but never really got into the story. It felt shallow and less the up to par.

This book was something slightly outside of my comfort zone, but wow did I truly enjoy every part. This book had all the parts that I love, and that was so pleasantly unexpected. The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus, was just that; it was HAUNTING. I got chills so many times and I was on the edge of my seat just wanting to know what was going to happen next. I loved how the lead was a strong female and that made me fall in love so much more. I have never read a book by Jamie Jo Wright before, but I will surely be adding more to my list because this was a masterpiece. She portrayed the ambiance of a circus in a way that is unparelleled and I felt like I was there the entire time.

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book. These are my honest thoughts.

Pippa was my favorite. I love that the end of her story made me cry. She got a well-deserved happy ending.

I adored Clive and Jake and Hank and the female Chandler and little Peter and Lily.

There were characters that stunned me, blew me away, surprised me. The overall vibe was dark and creepy. The ghost stuff was too odd for my blood.

Content: profanity, expletives, tattoos, alcohol, tobacco

This is a tremendous story with two fabulous characters, a wonderful assortment for a supporting cast, and a long held mystery that draws the two stories together.

Pippa and Chandler are brilliant characters. Two ladies from different eras living in the same town, Bluff River, both with chronic maladies grappling with being controlled by others. Interestingly, Pippa is treated like a child by her adopted father, who is the wealthy owner of the circus. He controls her, like I think he does all women, in his superior way. But she is this gutsy young lady who is drawn to the circus believing she was born into it and accordingly is her destiny. And then along comes baby Lily who is swoon material. Lily and Pippa make an instant connection. Lily is a baby elephant who has a tough entry to life, not unlike Pippa. Lily gives Pippa a purpose for being at the circus. 

Pippa has been observed from afar by The Watchmen, a hooded character, who may just be a figment of Pippa's imagination. Pippa believes this ghostly character has the keys to who her birth parents were. 

Chandler, meanwhile, is a highly competent restorer of old buildings on assignment in Bluff River. Her project: to restore the buildings of the Bonaventure Circus, which long ago ceased to exist. She's a single mother, unsure of who her son's father is, and a chronic lyme sufferer. She dotes on her son, Peter. But she carries all this angst about failing her parents and being replaced in her job by the ambitious Jackson. She's terrified her parents will take Peter from her, believing she is not competent to be a working mom. But, unlike Pippa, is Chandler's sense of being controlled all held in her own mind?

Some strange ghostly things happen in the buildings Chandler is to restore. And this is how Wright weaves the two stories together. The unsolved mysteries of murder and mayhem of Pippa's era suddenly come alive in Chandler's and she can't help herself in seeking to find some answers. 

The supporting cast is excellent. The circus family of unusual and multi-talented envelope Pippa in love while Chandler gains her own support crew too. The two men who take active interest in helping the ladies: Jake (Pippa) and Hank (Chandler) are tremendous creations. Two men with their own demons which make them seemingly dangerous but both seeking their own restoration of familial ties.

This is a story of family. Of brokenness. Of light shining brightly into the darkest places of brokenness and the hope that is available to those who seek to push beyond their seeming limitations for more in life. And yes, ghosts and long standing mysteries that have bred fear and suspicion for too many years and negatively impacted too many people.

The last fifty or so pages are riveting as Wright pulls the two stories together seamlessly with some real surprises. It's captivating storytelling from an author who has a deep passion for the circus and broken people. 

I received an early ebook copy from the publisher via NetGalley with no expectation of a favourable review.

1928
The Bonaventure Circus is a refuge for many, but Pippa Ripley was rejected from its inner circle as a baby. When she receives mysterious messages from someone called the "Watchman," she is determined to find him and the connection to her birth. As Pippa's search leads her to a man seeking justice for his murdered sister and evidence that a serial killer has been haunting the circus train, she must decide if uncovering her roots is worth putting herself directly in the path of the killer.

Present Day
The old circus train depot will either be torn down or preserved for historical importance, and its future rests on real estate project manager Chandler Faulk's shoulders. As she dives deep into the depot's history, she's also balancing a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease and the pressures of single motherhood. When she discovers clues to the unsolved murders of the past, Chandler is pulled into a story far darker and more haunting than even an abandoned train depot could portend.

The book is a lot of fun and does keep you in suspense. And there is always the delight of the circus!

Pippa, 1928 – Daughter of circus workers, abandoned and raised by the owner’s family, Pippa is now considered “circus royalty,” above the grit and grime of the circus, yet still feels like she belongs down in the community. Pippa has felt a presence nearby all of her life, watching her, protecting her, calling to her. When The Watchman, as she calls him, begins to step out of the shadows, Pippa will have to decide who to trust.
Chandler, present day – Niece of the new owner of the old circus train depot, Chandler is tasked with determining if the building is a candidate for renovation or if it should simply be demolished.
When the ghosts of the circus’s dark and foreboding past threaten Chandler in the present, she finds herself digging into the story of a serial killer who preyed on the circus in the past. But even in the present day, there’s a very real danger that leads Chandler to be uncertain of who she can turn to.

I had a very difficult time reviewing this book. The idea of an old-fashioned circus as the setting/backdrop, solving a bit of a mystery in the past that connects to the present, it all sounded really intriguing. And though the title certainly doesn’t scream Christian fiction, it’s billed as such. However, there is so much about this book that I struggled with, and in the end, I just don’t understand how it was released like this. I’m going to try to sort out my thoughts in sections below, to at least attempt to keep this review coherent.

Story – The past storyline on its own was decent, if a little muddled. The question of who The Watchman was and what he wanted from Pippa definitely kept me going throughout the book. There was not nearly as much exploration of circus life as I expected, as much of the story takes place in Pippa’s family’s house or in the elephant house, where Pippa is helping to care for an injured baby elephant. But that story on its own was pretty good, from beginning to end.

However, I found the present-day storyline completely pointless. I thought that, as the reader, some of the answers of the past mystery wouldn’t be revealed there in the past, but would come to light when discoveries were made almost 100 years later. I was wrong. It was basically an entire story in itself, with the past storyline a somewhat unnecessary background. And I didn’t like the present-day storyline at all. Seriously, Chandler just needed to put surveillance cameras in the buildings and that would’ve solved an awful lot of her trouble.

Characters – There’s an interesting dynamic between the two main characters. Chandler is fiercely independent, and Pippa is fiercely subordinate to all of the men in her life, even the one in the shadows, obeying his every secretive whim. And this is something the book did mostly well with, as both of these women found their way to a more neutral stance, allowing themselves to breathe a bit and have a bit more freedom. Overall, though, Chandler just drove me crazy. She had some issues that weren’t necessarily unrealistic, but man was she hard to like. In some ways, I felt like the only reason the author included her part of the story at all was so that she could create Chandler, who was perhaps a reflection of the author herself.

One glaring coincidence that I’m surprised more people aren’t bothered by is that both storylines have practically the exact same male romantic interest. They were both large, well-muscled, gruff, brooding men with long hair/beard, and even had the same basic goal driving them. Their names were even similar (Jake & Hank). The author even set up a really easy explanation for this coincidence, but then quickly shoved it aside and let it be just that–pure coincidence.

Writing – I don’t know who edited this book, but it needed a little more work. There were some strange inconsistencies here and there. For example, right from the first chapter, I got the feeling that Pippa was already accepted within the circus and its workers. It mentioned her dear friends in the circus, even listed them by name. Then we proceed through the story to find that most of these people she barely knows. Barely has met. Some of them barely acknowledge her or don’t like her (she’s “above” them, after all). If this was simply meant to show us that Pippa is delusional, imagining these people as her friends because she’s lonely, that never came across to me. Instead, I found myself wondering if the story was written out of order.

Additionally, Linda Pike is said to have disappeared when she was 12. Then later it says she went missing at 18. And I noticed an observation that Pippa made about Jake regarding how good he looked smoking a cigar that was then repeated, almost word-for-word, a few chapters later. There are others, and these aren’t tiny typos, but fairly noticeable mistakes, so many that it took me out of the story quite a bit.

Genre – Now for the thing that bothered me the most throughout the book. It’s listed as Christian fiction, and I’m not sure who decided that was a good idea. I get that for Christian authors, it can be difficult to find a good middle ground sometimes. You don’t necessarily always want to write a book where there’s a solid Christian message, but if you include any Christian talk, it’s deemed too religious to be secular. But wow, the characters were so incredibly confused about their own faith that it could easily leave a reader confused too. I think that if you’re going to write a book where there’s a hint that ghosts and hauntings might be real, and call it Christian, you should definitely come down on one side or the other about whether or not it was a real haunting. At least that way Christians who read the book can agree or disagree. But the “supernatural” events in the present day were really never explained, more just “hand-waved” away at the end. I was left feeling incredibly unsettled (not because it spooked me, but because it was so unpleasant), and I don’t think I’ll read another book by this author.

I don’t read only Christian books, and I don’t necessarily expect every book by a Christian author or in the Christian genre to have a solid Christian lesson or message. But to call it Christian and have one of your main characters this confused over what the Bible even says about what’s going on, or whether or not she should let a psychic contact the spirit world on her behalf, because maybe the psychic was sent by God and Chandler was wasting the opportunity because of a Sunday school lesson (wow!)…to me, this is not a good message anyone should be reading.

I have to admit this novel didn't grab me immediately and I took some time to get into it.  Having said that, it is worth persisting and I think must readers who enjoy a good mystery would enjoy this one.

For chaste romance and mystery, The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus is a fine read. What I liked most about this dual-timeline circus mystery? I found myself rooting for a character with an autoimmune disorder. That felt like it fit the harried single mother, Chandler, well. I applaud the author for this choice of inclusion. While I enjoyed the mystery, this book was not for me. It felt too heavy-handed, and I'm not speaking of the Christian aspects. The prose and dialog had many stilted moments that took me out of the narrative flow.

I absolutely love mysteries and crime novels but, sadly, this one was not for me.

I loved that this was a split-time novel, as I love watching the dots connect as the story unfolds! To be honest, I felt like the modern time story was a bit lacking as far as being able to really connect with Chandler and the others.

My other issue was that, while I realized this book was about ghosts and poltergeists before ever picking it up, I thought it was going to be presented more through a Biblical point of view. Instead, it seemed for a while like Chandler was being persuaded to leave her reservations behind and truly believe in these hauntings.

All in all, I actually did really like the writing style and am not going to let this stop me from reading others novels by this author. I loved Pippa and felt connected to her from the start. She was list and desperately seeking approval, friendship, and self-worth. She and Chandler both were very down-to-earth, very real characters, which is important to me as a reader to be more relatable. I absolutely loved the bit about the baby elephant as it wasn't something I thought about happening behind the scenes in a circus.

Jamie Jo Wright is truly talented - this just wasn't a good fit for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

I really enjoyed this story. I was a bit surprised because it is the first book in this genre that I read, but it turned out to be a very good story. It has two storylines that kept me always alert and wondering what would happen next. 
A beautifully story where the past collides with the present in such a smooth way, that the reader would want to know the ending.

I have just finished reading The Haunting of Bonaventure Circus written by Jaime Jo Wright and I have to say that this is one of my favorite reads, definitely of the year and perhaps more.  I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in both time periods and I related to different aspects of each female lead, Pippa and Chandler. There were quite a few times I found myself pausing to go back to reread certain sentences or passages which I would then highlight so I could go back to savor them again. Mrs. Wright has a certain musicality to her phrasing and an insight that reached in and touched my heart and my soul.  This story and the sentiments behind it are lovely yet strengthning.  I appreciated the Christian aspects a great deal. I realize that some may be put off by the label Christian fiction but don't be. The idea that may be in your head, that the text will be laden with scripture or be heavy with judgments is not true in this novel and hasn't been true in any of the "Christian" novels I have read in the past. To me, at least, it just ensures that the book I am reading doesn't contain graphic adult (intimate) descriptions of things and situations I believe to be private. It means that I can enjoy the writing and not have to be bogged down by TMI and the ever internal question "What if the author's parents see this, won't they be embarrassed?"

 Well, enough of that tangent! The Haunting of Bonaventure Circus is a great solid read. Right from the first sentence I knew I was in for something special, something meaningful. If you like reading about women who, on a journey of self discovery (whether they realize it or not), find out that they are strong, they do have value, they do matter, they have something to contribute; THIS is the book for you. It is inspiring and beautiful. Many of the beautiful things I highlighted will stay with me. They are words that I needed to read.

At first, I wasn't really into the story, but in the end, I really enjoyed it. It wasn't overly religious, which makes the book likeable to a bigger crowd. The different timeline and perspective were a bit confusing for me, but I loved the characters.

I loved this book.  although a Lot of back and forth in time was needed to explain the why and how .   A great storyline that leads to finding a killer from past murders.    

A good concept and lots of imagination for the book to move on as it traces the past at the same time.   

The baby elephant is the new life that starts the past to open up.  

A good read for crime lovers.

I read The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond and thoroughly enjoyed the time-slip novel. When I got this book, I was hopeful that the haunting part would be something other than what it usually means. The writing was solid and the plot well-developed. However, it took me a long time to get into the story and sadly, the haunting did refer to ghosts and poltergeists that were not soundly explained as evil which the Bible speaks against. I wanted to like the book, but the topic of the occult and evil was not dealt with from a Biblical point-of-view, and I cannot recommend it. 

I voluntarily received a complimentary copy from NetGalley and Bethany House. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

I'd like to thank @netgalley and @bethanyhousefiction for the digital copy of this book!
This was such a fun mystery! This is technically classified as Christian fiction but it wasn't overly religious. I loved the two different timelines and the 2 different perspectives. I loved the characters and how real they felt. Although the ended felt a bit rushed, I loved how the timelines came together. I kept wondering how they would be connected but I didn't guess the twists or ending. This was a fun read especially because I love the circus and love elephants! This is definitely a good mystery to pick up!

This book just isn't for me.  It took me multiple attempts to finally read it, and I never was able to actually connect with it in any meaningful way.  I can see where it would work for others.  The setting is solid, and the writing isn't bad.  But there's something about the story and the telling of it that never seemed natural.  There was no easy flow to the dialogue, or the plot, or even the writing.  Everything about this book felt forced to me.  I've seen the high ratings for the novel, so I can tell I am very much in the minority.  Something much be hindering me from properly connecting with it.  Because I don't have anything favorable to add to the reviews already out in the world, I will not be posting my thoughts elsewhere.  Perhaps I'll try it again some day and be able to develop a different opinion.

Wow. Jaime Jo Wright continues to amaze me. I have adored each and every book she's written, and each new one I claim is my new favorite. And while I'm tempted to do that again, I might as well just say they are all my favorite! LOL.

Wright is such a fantastic story teller. Truly. She takes her time with the past and present, and slowly intertwines the two, giving little glimpses as to how it will all connect, until you get near the end and bam. Here's the connecting pieces, which are always a delightful surprise, and you immediately want to read it again! And she is the master of making things creepy, but not so creepy that you have to put the book away and never pick it up again. There are things in the story that are eery, things that don't make sense. Until you get to the end that is. The thing about Wright is that I always know she's going to explain everything in the end. And it really puts things into perspective. Like I said, makes you want to read the book all over again!

The other thing I enjoy about Wright's books is the characters. They are so well written. I honestly cannot tell who I connected with more, Pippa or Chandler. I will say this - you can tell that Wright put her heart and soul into Chandler's character. My husband has lyme's disease, and while his symptoms are not that severe, I appreciate it being in a novel, and something I could totally understand and connect with. It just added to the depth of the story for me - and inspiration for others to not let your illnesses drag you down!

Once again Wright's captivating novel had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. My only regret is that I have to wait so long for the next book to release. But that's ok. I know it'll be worth the wait! I highly recommend reading this (and others!) - just make sure to read it during the day, or with a friend close by ;)

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I was not required to write a favorable review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.