Oh this book is lovely. It's deep and well-paced and has some of the most vivid imagery I've read in a long time. I swear I could smell the popcorn and hear the violins and taste the chocolate mice (though that might have been this fever helping out).

The book follows a classic magician's duel that is played out through the construction of a fantastical circus. The two unwilling combatants are tied into the game at a very young age by their respective teachers, who have an ancient but amiable vendetta. That's where the book starts, and it only becomes more convoluted from there. It's definitely a novel about characters—the combatants, the performers, the circus followers, and the circus itself (and it's an elegant monochrome cirque du soleil sort of circus, look for tumblers and illusionists and living statues here, not clowns and rainbow-bright colors).

I haven't read the cover blurb, as I bought this as an ebook upon a recommendation, but I hear it's highly misleading.
So let me just say: if you liked 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell', 'The Prestige', and the tv series 'Carnivale' as much as I did... Then this is for you. Go for it.