Two New Historical Novels to Watch: Exalted Objects and Circus of the Vanishing Elephant
Two striking new historical novels arrive this fall—but History Through Fiction readers can preorder early and join the authors in conversation this May.
Today, History Through Fiction is delighted to share an invitation for two upcoming novels that will officially release on September 15, 2026: Circus of the Vanishing Elephant by Tim Schooley and Exalted Objects by Jane D. Cairns.
These are very different books in setting and texture. One unfolds amid the fading spectacle of a 1974 circus, where illusion, loyalty, and freedom collide beneath the canvas. The other reaches into nineteenth-century New Hampshire, where railroads, ambition, artistry, and family strain are bound tightly together. Yet both novels are united by something that matters deeply to readers of historical fiction: they use the past not as decoration, but as a living pressure on the people inside it.
And there is more than a cover reveal to celebrate.
Readers who preorder directly through the History Through Fiction online store will receive paperback and ebook editions on or shortly after July 15—two months before the books become widely available elsewhere. We are also inviting readers to join us on Thursday, May 28 at 7:00 PM Central for a live virtual event, Spectacle & Steel: Two Historical Novels in Conversation, featuring both authors in discussion.
Below, you’ll find a first look at both books, what makes each one compelling, and how to join us early for both the conversation and the reading experience.
Two forthcoming novels, two unforgettable historical worlds
Circus of the Vanishing Elephant by Tim Schooley
Some historical novels begin with a battlefield, a palace, or a political crisis. Tim Schooley’s Circus of the Vanishing Elephant begins with spectacle—and then asks what remains when the illusion gives way.
Set in 1974, the novel brings readers into the struggling world of the King Minos Circus, a place of fading glamour, uneasy loyalties, and lives held together by performance. At the center of the story is Henrietta, the circus’s beloved elephant, whose disappearance during a parade sets the plot into motion. Suspicion falls on the owner’s estranged daughter, Randi, and on Ainge, a young clown already burdened by grief and uncertainty. What follows is not simply a chase, but a deeper reckoning with freedom, belonging, and the cost of holding too tightly to what we claim to love.
What makes the premise especially intriguing is the way it seems to balance movement and emotion. The novel promises escape, pursuit, roadside landscapes, and theatrical energy—but also moral pressure, fractured family bonds, and difficult choices. It is a story of spectacle on the surface and human vulnerability underneath.
That tension is reflected in the response the book has already received. As City Book Review puts it, the novel is “historical fiction with real sawdust under its nails.” That line feels right. Tim Schooley’s own experience as a Ringling Bros. clown gives the novel an added sense of texture and authority, suggesting a world that has been observed from the inside rather than imagined only at a distance.
For readers drawn to historical fiction that explores found families, American restlessness, and the emotional complexity beneath public performance, Circus of the Vanishing Elephant promises a setting as vivid as its title.
Exalted Objects by Jane D. Cairns
If Circus of the Vanishing Elephant turns toward motion, illusion, and the open road, Jane D. Cairns’s Exalted Objects moves into the powerful machinery of the nineteenth century and the intimate costs of progress.
Set in nineteenth-century New Hampshire, the novel centers on George Stark, a railroad magnate forced toward an impossible decision after public scandal and personal crisis: should he commit his eccentric brother Will to an asylum, or risk his own career and family standing by refusing? From there, the story rewinds to 1846 and traces the brothers along diverging paths—George drawn toward industry and expansion, Will toward poetry, animals, artistry, and the creation of a more unconventional life.
That contrast gives the novel much of its force. Historical fiction is often at its best when it captures not only what an era built, but what that building cost. Railroads, commerce, and national ambition may promise order and achievement, but they can also demand sacrifice—from families, from private selves, and from anyone who does not fit neatly inside the structures of progress. Exalted Objects appears to inhabit exactly that tension.
The early praise for the book suggests that readers will find both sweep and emotional depth here. Annie Hartnett calls it “a stunner for historical fiction fans,” while Michelle Hoover praises its testing of the reader’s sympathies and its rich exploration of power, family, and competing visions of America. Those endorsements point to a novel that is not content with easy moral categories. Instead, it seems ready to ask how ambition, tenderness, duty, and creativity can coexist—or fail to.
For readers who love historical fiction rooted in family conflict, American transformation, and the uneasy line between order and imagination, Exalted Objects looks especially promising.
Why preorder through History Through Fiction?
Preorders do more than reserve a future read. They create momentum around a book, help signal reader interest early, and strengthen the relationship between an independent press and the audience that sustains it.
For these two novels, there is also a direct reader benefit: if you preorder through the History Through Fiction online store, you will receive the paperback and ebook editions on or shortly after July 15, well ahead of the official September 15, 2026 release date.
That early-access window makes this more than an ordinary preorder. It is a chance to be part of the books’ first wave of readers—to encounter these stories early, talk about them sooner, and join the community gathering around them before the wider release.
Early-access note: Paperback and ebook editions are part of the History Through Fiction preorder program. Hardcover editions will be available through other retailers. Also, Exalted Objects will be available as an audiobook at a future date.
Join us live on Thu May 28 for Spectacle & Steel
A cover reveal is an invitation to read. This event is an invitation to listen more closely.
On Thursday, May 28 from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM Central, History Through Fiction will host Spectacle & Steel: Two Historical Novels in Conversation, a live Zoom preorder event featuring Tim Schooley and Jane D. Cairns, guided by Colin Mustful.
The conversation will bring readers into two richly imagined worlds—one shaped by circus spectacle, the other by industrial expansion—while exploring the human questions that animate both books: ambition, freedom, loyalty, family, belonging, and the pressures history places on ordinary and extraordinary lives alike.
The event will include:
brief readings from both authors,
a conversation about the historical inspiration behind each novel,
discussion of the emotional and thematic stakes at the heart of the books, and
a live audience Q&A.
For readers, that makes the event more than a promotional stop. It is an opportunity to hear how two writers approached very different corners of the past, and why these particular stories mattered enough to tell.
A first look at what’s ahead
Historical fiction readers often return to the genre because it offers two experiences at once: immersion in a world unlike our own, and recognition of emotions that remain painfully familiar. That dual experience seems especially present in these two novels.
Circus of the Vanishing Elephant offers readers a world of performance, movement, and fragile loyalty, where freedom is both desired and difficult to define. Exalted Objects asks what progress demands of family, imagination, and care in a century busy remaking the American landscape. One novel leans toward vanishing acts, small towns, and sawdust. The other turns toward rail lines, family estates, and the ache of competing visions. Both promise the kinds of stakes that keep historical fiction alive: not simply what happened, but what it felt like to live through the forces that made it happen.
We are thrilled to share these covers with you now—and even more excited to invite you further in.
If either of these books speaks to you, now is the perfect time to act:
preorder through History Through Fiction for early access in July,
reserve your place at the May 28 virtual event, and
keep an eye on the History Through Fiction blog for more conversations, features, and updates as these releases draw closer.
