Things Fall Apart — Clio Gray

Staßburg, Germany The revolutions of 1848 are on the horizon. Europe is breaking up from within, each piece tugging away from the other. And the fate of one boy is intricately bound up in those turbulent events. Philbert is born with a monstrous deformity on his skull, and has an abysmal early start in life, until he is adopted by Maulwerf's Fair of Wonders, where he feels feeling at home with the other cast-offs living on the edge of society: the freaks and oddities, actors and pedlars, travelling from one town to the next with their shows and wares. But his sense of peace is quickly shattered as the Empire starts to fall apart. With taxes increasing and food sparse, starving peasants are barricading the towns and storming the storehouses of the rich. After sheltering a small band of rebels, the Fair is attacked by government soldiers and the rebels viciously executed. But that is just the beginning. Unknown to Philbert, he is to be the trigger for one of the coming revolutions, caught up in the political machinations of the time with disastrous results, both for him and those around him. After escaping a murderous riot at the infamous Westphal Club - meeting place of the intelligentsia and political agitators â€" Philbert is separated from the Fair, on the run, hunted by the militia, his only goal to get back to the Fair and their protection before everything falls apart. 'Things Fall Apart' is a gripping historical adventure, packed with strange and unusual characters, places and events; set in a time rarely visited, but one you'll not want to miss, with Cloth Markets, Ice Fairs, palaces, undercrofts, singing dwarfs, hairy women, albino jesters, suicide and murder. And all because of one boy and his pig.