Outside The Limelight by Terez Mertes Rose

As a non-dancer I have a real love for dance and watch a lot of movies about dance and fall down the You Tube rabbit hole with startling regularity. However, I haven't really read much set in the dance world so when I came across this set in the rarefied world of Classical and Contemporary Ballet I had to give it a go. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Author has managed to strike the right balance between the day to day realities of being part of a large Ballet Company (the relentless rehearsing, the day to day pain and the jealousies) with the private lives of the dancers. In this case we are focused on the lives of two sisters - Dena and Rebecca Lindgren - both of whom dance for the same company but have very different experiences within it. It is so tempting to give a full breakdown of the plot here as it is rich and the arc is exceptionally good. I will refrain from doing so as that would spoil your enjoyment of the book.

The main characters in the book are very vivid and leap in to life on the page. Even the secondary and tertiary characters are well fleshed out and you get an inkling of their personalities despite not "seeing" them enough to really get to know them. Nobody in this book is all good or all bad and the emotional changes within that are often masked by the worldly face are particularly well drawn. The misunderstandings between characters are believable and this is clearly shown between the sisters themselves when past jealousies colour their interpretation of actions.

The only real let down for me was the Social Media side of things, which is surprising as the Author is a blogger herself. The repercussions of which are pretty realistic and I know the HR department at my office would go in to melt down if I posted what is posted about the Company and it's Artistic Director and we don't rely on public support to keep in business.

A thoroughly enjoyable novel that I raced through and genuinely could not wait to get to the next page of. This may have been to get to all those gloriously depicted dance sections, whether in rehearsal, in Company Class or during a performance they are just so evocative and enjoyable. The fact that the pain of a dancer's life is shown, blisters, bunions and throbbing joints and all, in a realistic way is the icing on a quite decadently enjoyable cake. So much so I have now bought the previous book in the series and can't wait to start it.