Title: Not Strictly Ballroom
Series: Dance Lovers 1
Author: Jim Wendel
Publisher: Lark About Press
Pages: 328
Formats: Reviewed on eBook
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Acknowledgment: Thanks to Gay Romance Reviews for providing an ARC
While the author in their introduction to this novel tries to encapsulates this novel by saying it’s like a gay Strictly Ballroom- while this is true, it also does a great disservice to how bloody awesome this novel is.
The novel features Darcy, the son of a former professional dancer who never quite got to reach her dreams. And as you can imagine, she has subsequently foistered her dreams upon him; while you can tell Darcy does enjoy the dancing (and the winning), you can tell that he also longs for me, to be his own person with his own dreams.
Thankfully he has his best friend Nick, who in a nice little subversion is a gay tradesman who helps in his dad’s business to earn enough money to buy his own house for a place to escape to.
Wendel is a very talented writer- both Nick and Darcy are written sooo well and their dreams, desires and fears are often shown in the book in such a way, you can’t disagree with them.
He also sets this book in the north of England- traditionally a working class area that you think are going to feature homophobic attacks, but again Wendel nice subverts this by only featuring just love and acceptance; while not glossing over any nastyness, it just feels all kinds of real and true.
I highly recommend this book to everyone to purchase