A very fun read in an unusual setting, I adored this book. Highly focused on the characters, this book centers on Zillah, a black woman, playing the character of Great Amazonia (a wild woman from the African jungle) in a London theatre. While born of a slave mother, she is free, and because of her role as Amazonia (providing her with wages allowing her to live independently), she must hide her identity. She struggles with living without pretense but her status as a black woman makes her rising in British society unattainable. Her lover, a wealthy lord, adds further conflict to her aspirations. When her employer kidnaps additional Africans for his new heinous acts, she begins to question her life's choices. There's adventure, mystery and romance in the story and yet it explores the history of marginalized groups in Victorian England. Highly entertaining, this book also had surprises and gave me food for thought days after I finished it. ( )

This certainly wasn't what I was expecting, but in a completely good way. This is the story of Zillah, a late 19th-century London woman of mixed race, who finds work in a theatre as Amazonia, an African woman who performs for the delight and horror of the audience. Zillah wants to survive as best she can and she feels her role in the theatre is the way to accomplish this, until she makes the acquittance of Lucien Winters, a Black merchant who dreams of relocating to Sierra Leone, and uncovers her employer's scheme to hold hostage other people of color to put on a even more extreme sort of show. Zillah eventually manages to find her own way, and I found the decisions and conclusions she reaches satisfying. Overall, this book made for a great read. ( )

Amazonia is the star of Crillick's theatre, a wild woman from darkest Africa. In reality Zillah is the daughter of a slave, brought up free but struggling to survive in Victorian London where her skin colour means she is ostracised by both parts of society. Taken as a mistress by a Viscount, Zillah sees a different side to noble society but when she meets an educated black man she has an awakening of conscience.
I really loved the different perspective that this book shows, the reality of life for the recently freed slaves in early Victorian London. There is a lot of detail about the theatre, about life for the poor and the rich and about philanthropic ideas such as the repatriation to Sierra Leone. It is an entertaining read with some emotive parts. ( )

Lianne Dillsworth's Theatre of Marvels is a marvel of a book. Zillah, a free black woman living in Victorian London, has climbed out of poverty playing Great Amazonia—supposedly a wild woman from the heart of Africa—in a variety show. Since she's relatively light-skinned, she has to black up her face and body for the role to become the African her working-class audience expects.

Zillah is the mistress of a member of the peerage. She's also beginning to spend time with a freed slave who has risen to become a merchant and who is active in the movement to establish a colony of free blacks in Sierra Leone. He's appalled by Zillah's act and tells her when she's ready to abandon it to come to him for support.

Not surprisingly, Zillah's life is full of questions. She's light skinned, but still still identifiably black, so what hope does she have of rising in British society? What kind of work could she find that would pay a living wage other than the work she's currently doing? What impact does her portrayal of Amazonia have on public ideas about Africa and blacks?

When her employer sets up a grisly new "act" involving kidnapped Africans, Zillah's somewhat abstract questions become very specific and very real. Theatre of Marvels follows Zillah's coming to what Paolo Freire would call critical consciousness and the choices she makes along this personal journey.

Dillsworth's depiction of Victorian London is detailed and accurate. Her character Zillah brings to the fore a part of Victorian London's population whose lives have been too little represented in historical fiction set in this era. If you're looking for an historical novel that has a gripping plot and simultaneously offers complex questions about identity and justice, Theatre of Marvels will delight you.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. ( )