The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Alice Hoffman
Scribner
<p>Retail</p><p>Mesmerizing and illuminating, Alice Hoffman’s <em>The Museum of Extraordinary Things</em> is the story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the twentieth century.  </p><p>Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.  </p><p>The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.  </p><p>With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. <em>The Museum of Extraordinary Things</em> is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding.</p><p>**</p>