Bunheads by Sophie Flack

In this book we follow the life of ballerina, Hannah as she progresses through her company and gains more exclusive performance parts for herself. The girls despite being friends are still rivals and a rivalry against Zoe her friend soon sees the pair desiring and fighting for a lead role.

Soon enough she discovers love and learns there's more to life than rigid hard work leading her to eventually decide she has to choose between Matt and Jacob as well as a life normal living or as a ballet star.

I love ballet books and it was partly truthful as the author story is similar and inspired the book. It was eventful and honest and easy to believe especially as ballet is a hard career and takes much dedication. The characters were typical young adults and the book seemed to race by despite being average length and action packed I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The Royal Ballet School Diaries Book 1 by Alexandra Moss

Ellie and her mum move from Chicago to Oxford in England. Her mum suffers with MS and her dad passed away when she was young.

After getting an audition for the Royal Ballet School she hopes she can dance well enough to get accepted only will she make it to the audition with her mum having MS and her own nervousness?

Ellie has a lot of worries about will she get in, could she start her career now, who'll look after her mum and also has to make friends and deal with her school's pressures and bullies. I always enjoy a ballet themes book but with a chronically ill parent this added a unique edge we rarely see in children's fiction and added to the rolling drama in the book.

A great read for a dance fan to pick up and enjoy!

Sparrow by Mary Cecilia Jackson

In this book we meet Sparrow who is friends with Delany and Lucas we follow her on her ballerina journey and as she discovers how her past changed her specifically her mother's involvement in her life and how it helps her accept she was abused.

As she doesn't see how Lucas feels about her as he copes with his father's death nor understand the warnings from her friends and family about Tristan her boyfriend, she's putting her stunning expected ballerina future in jeopardy, can she realise what she needs to do before it's too late?

I loved Sparrow being a broken Many bird who had to break and grow into a stronger beautiful girl rising above all the abuse and pain in her life. A challenging awakening novel about the dangers of hiding abuse.

Many thanks to the publisher's for allowing me to review this book for them!

The 24 Hour Café by Libby Page

Hannah and Mona a singer and dancer, work at the 24 hour cafe in London where the cafe attracts a colourful variety of personalities everyday.

I really enjoyed the Lido however I do feel this book wasn't as good personally as I didn't like Hannah or Mona's characters sadly as much as The Lido's main characters where I could picture it clearly in my mind and I did find the start slow. However Hannah's story kept me wanting to read on as the plot develops more so than Mona's story did.

However if you love people watching when out and about this is the book for you as the café attracts a variety of people with different stories, very true to everyday life at any café and for relatability that way the fun of the storyline kept me intrigued to read on especially Dan the student and John the big issue seller's stories were interesting to me to see their hardship.

There was a variety of issues raised with characters from university, death, love, cheating, work and of course we read the history of how Hannah met Mona and how their friendship becomes strained with new opportunities ahead.

To me I enjoyed the book showing all walks of life people can be in and situations they can be forced to face and for that reason I did enjoy the book as it went on.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them and be part of the blog tour!

https://libbypage.co.uk/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3110863.Libby_Page

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Libby-Page/e/B004150H44

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-24-hour-cafe/libby-page/9781409175247

Skin And Bones by Sherry Shahan

In this book told from a male perspective about his fight with anorexia and in patient treatment we meet, Bones as his inpatient roommate Lard calls him he suffers from compulsive overeating unlike Bones, an anorexic boy and group therapy shows him how others suffer to with food disorders.

I liked the flair of romance in the book as we see Bones fall for anorexic girl Alice, a ballet dancer wanting to perform for a company.

We see how control is taken from them and they try to take it back. We also see how dangerous their battles are with food.
It was believable and realistic as the teens all deal with real issues in relatable ways because of various reasons. We see their struggles and how much they are controlled in their thoughts about food.

Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven

Jack suffers with prosopagnosia and was dating Caroline until he kissed her cousin having thought she was Caroline. His dad had cancer and cheated on his mum with his science teacher which causes him a lot of stress still.

Libby was 600 pounds but is now 300 and can leave her house her mum died and she put on weight. She tried to leave her house before but had panic attacks but is more confident now she's lost some of the weight.

Libby and Jack are involved in a minor incident in the cafeteria of their school which results in them both landing school community service after the end of the school day together.
They both remember her house being half destroyed to get her out to hospital when she had a bad attack, they soon realize they knew each other before now as Jack had always lived opposite Libby, knew her story and didn't judge her then and doesn't now.

Libby also loves to dance and the school team, Camels host team try outs where Jayvee and bailey cheer her on to get through trying.

I really enjoyed the book overall, I liked how Libby was strong willed and didn't take no messing from anyone but stood up to them and faced things herself unlike so many book characters where boys are needed to save them. The sense of girl power friendship between the three girls was also a nice touch that they reconnected and didn't judge Libby.

Forbidden Dance by Deanna Roy

Livia and Benjamin have an instant connection.

Livia grew up shadowed by her father, being homeschooled and begging to dance ballet, now she's a teacher of ballet at Dreamcatcher dance school teaching young disabled children.
We also get a shock early on I won't spoil but at nineteen she has a lot of responsibility. Her best friend is Mindy, who is sixteen and an approved friend by her parents.

Blitz Craven was host of dance reality show, Dance Blitz. It had very racy performances and was alike TV show the bachelor. He's twenty six to Livia's nineteen and right from when they meet, there's heavy chemistry between them.

Livia and Blitz meet up a lot in the store room at the dance studio, a dark room they can hide away in together. Please be aware that this book does contain mature content and therefore read only if you're older than eighteen as it is a new adult fiction not young adult fiction.

I personally love the story of her being from a conservative family but we see she grows more daring throughout the book, showing that love wins over all obstacles despite Blitz returning to LA, he comes back to her and all I can say is I'm so hooked.

This book is part of a series and yes, I've added it to my kindle to buy wish list!

Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review the first book in what is set to be a daring, adventurous series.

Outside The Limelight by Terez Mertes Rose

Dena Lindgren is a petite dancer and three years younger than sister, Rebecca. Dena is asked to be a soloist but knows it'll hurt her sister as they both deal with their dad's divorce.

Now in their early twenties as the story flashes forwards in time, Dena has had a relationship with fellow dancer Nicholas, her best friends are Lana and Sylvie, her dad has remarried and Rebecca seems bitter towards her still at times as does her boyfriend, Boyd.

There's also the fact that she's having a battle with fatigue and dizziness and it's beginning to affect her performance. Pretty swiftly we discover the cause is a brain tumour and her dance teacher Anders suspected so secretly all along. As she undergoes hours of horrendous surgery, her sister and parents wait anxiously tension between them all after Rebecca tricked her father into telling her what was wrong with Dena and not allowing Dena time to inform everyone at the dance school as she passes on the news.

As Dena recovers, we watch her torment at not being allowed to perform again yet and watch as we find her sister in a love triangle of wanting to break up with Boyd, date Anders and not seeing how her college teacher of science, Misha feels towards her. Though, as the novel goes on Misha and Dene become close friends as she learns he left behind medical training to teach and he understands her emotional frustrations at how her body is back and forth with healing and then needing more procedures again.

Meanwhile, her sister goes through a rollercoaster of friendship and relationship problems although she does try more with Dena to repair the cracks in their rocky relationship. Especially with Rebecca being offered a bigger role and able to dance, whilst Dena is not able to at the standard the company takes people on for performance's.

The book is alike to Lurlene McDaniels books of which also tackle young love and medical problems combined and alike E4 show Stage School in the ballet setting. It's a very touching book and is actually the second in a series I have discovered of which both are available on Amazon to buy and read. I highly recommend you read them for yourselves but read them the right way round too, I'm sure going to read the first one too myself now after enjoying this one so much.

Thanks to the publishers allowing me to review this book for you!