The Winner Blog Tour
Book Details:
Book Title: The Winner: A Ballroom Dance Novel by Erin Bomboy
Category: Adult Fiction, 326 pages
Genre: Women’s Literature, Literary Romance
Publisher: Curtain Call Press
Release date: Dec 20, 2016
Content Rating: PG-13: (four brief sex scenes with no named body parts and written in metaphor, five minor instances of profanity (no f bombs), no violence)
Book Description:
The most prestigious ballroom dance competition in the United States.
Two dancers need to win.
Only one can.
Nina Fortunova wasn’t supposed to end up almost thirty, divorced, with her dreams of winning shattered. She teams up with Jorge Gonzalez, a Latin dancer, to reinvent the flashy Smooth style. When the Chairman of the Judges offers to throw the competition in their favor, Nina must decide how far she will go to win, even if it means losing Jorge.
Carly Martindale is doing everything she’s been taught not to do—placing her happiness first by dancing with Trey Devereux, the former three-time champion who’s returned to competition for mysterious reasons. Carly becomes obsessed with Trey and allows him to control her every move at great risk to her physical and emotional health. How far will she sacrifice herself, so Trey and she can win? Co-workers, then friends, and now arch competitors, Nina and Carly face off to determine who will be the winner.
Bright, emotive, and told through dual narrators, The Winner examines the costs associated with winning, the internalization of parental ambition, and the effect of gendered roles on and off the dance floor. A literary romance, The Winner is perfect for readers who love Dancing with the Stars, Strictly Come Dancing, So You Think You Can Dance, and the old-school elegance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The Winner contains a fact-versus-fiction section at the end.
Praise for The Winner:
“ . . . educational, enjoyable, and engrossing.”
– Midwest Book Review
“The Winner is a winner.”
– Goodreads Review
“Rousing, bittersweet, and heartbreakingly beautiful.”
– Amazon Review
To read more reviews, please visit Erin Bomboy’s page on iRead Book Tours.
My Review:
First let me start off by saying there just aren’t enough books out there that revolve around the world of dance. I am a huge fan of dance. It is near and dear to my heart. SYTYCD is my favorite show on television. I absolutely loved reading a book that allowed me to get swept away onto the dance floor. It was refreshing to read. There is something intoxicating about it. It is one one of my loves.
I enjoyed every second of this story. I sped through the pages so quickly. The characters were absolutely lovely. I loved that there was more than one narrator and that the chapters switched back and forth between the two main characters Nina and Carly. It was exciting to read each of their stories. It kept the book very interesting. There was no time to get bored. It was executed perfectly. It really made for an enjoyable read.
Don’t be fooled by the dancing. This story was so much more than that. It was about dreams, aspirations, goals, love, family, heartache, and living the American dream as well. It was about control, doing the right thing, doing what makes you happy, sacrifice and consequences. There were a few plot twists that I didn’t see coming. The writing made the story easy to visualize and I easily became wrapped up in the story. I could picture it all in my head. I would love to see this book become a movie. It would be fantastic! We need another good dance movie.
Even if you are not a fan of dance you will still enjoy this book. There is so much more story there than the dance. If you love dance as much as I do then you will enjoy this book that much more. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves dance or anyone looking for something original and different from the norm.
*There are some mature themes to the book ( not too graphic) that might be a bit more suited for the adult readers.
Overall, I really liked this story and I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. I would have liked to see the dancing scenes a bit more detailed. That was my only gripe but not much of one. It was still fantastic!
Buy the Book:
Meet the Author:
A native of Richmond, Virginia, Erin Bomboy trained as a classical ballet dancer before spending a decade as a professional competitive ballroom dancer. She holds an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter where she works as a writer, editor, and teacher in the dance field. In her free time, Erin enjoys bacon, books, cats, and wine.
She is the author of The Piece: A Contemporary Ballet Novel and The Winner: A Ballroom Dance Novel. Her next novel, tentatively titled The Pas de Deux: A Classical Ballet Novel, will explore the relationship between a ballerina at the end of her career and the much-younger dancer with whom she falls in love. Taking the shape of a traditional pas de deux, it will premiere in 2018.
Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter
Enter the Giveaway!
Ends Oct 7
