Tag: giveaway

Blog Tour: The Winner by Erin Bomboy

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The Winner by Erin Bomboy

As a fan of Strictly Come Dancing, I’m thrilled to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Winner: A Ballroom Dance Novel by Erin Bomboy. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of competitive ballroom dancing, then this is the book for you!

WinIf you’re based in the United States, I can give you the chance to dance away with your own copy of The Winner. Just tap on the link below to enter the giveaway. The giveaway closes on 6th October.

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/defcd44e303/

The Winner by Erin BomboyAbout the Book

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. When she teams up with Jorge Gonzalez, a Latin dancer, to reinvent the flashy Smooth style, 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. How far will Carly 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.

Format: ebook (328 pp.), Paperback (353 pp.)      Publisher: Curtain Call Press
Published: 20th Dec 2016                                           Genre: Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Winner on Goodreads

My Review

I’m a huge fan of Strictly Come Dancing (the format known as Dancing With The Stars in the US) but watching it on TV gives you little indication of the real life drama, the graft, and the travelling that is integral to the competitive ballroom dancing circuit. The Winner lifts the lid on this and gives you privileged access to the lives of the dancers, and to what goes on before and during competitions.  As well as being a fascinating story about ballroom dancing, The Winner is also a terrifically engaging story about two really interesting female characters.

Nina is disappointed in love, thwarted in her dance ambitions, starting to feel the physical effects of her dancing career but conscious of all her mother has sacrificed to enable her to chase her dream of winning. Carly is a perfectionist, seeking escape from a home dominated by the needs of her brother who is low-level autistic, all the time battling her guilt at pursuing her dream when she is needed at home. Nina and Carly, may be at different points in their careers but they are equally in love with dancing – and equally determined to win the top prize in ballroom dancing.

Then there are the men: Jorge – driven, passionate but too finding his body starting to let him down; Trey – handsome, enigmatic, self-contained, guarded, on the comeback trail for reasons of his own.

The author does a great job of conveying the fierce competition, the hard work and the economic realities of competitive ballroom dancing. It’s an environment where winning can bring great financial rewards and an illustrious career in coaching or judging but losing brings nothing.

‘Competition was what was happening right now, right here. It was Darwinian, survival of the fittest, the fleetest, the fastest thinker.’

I really admired how the author managed to communicate the intricacies of dancing and those small elements of technique that separate the good from the great. What comes across is her admiration for the craft of dancing when done really well – the musicality, timing, connection between the couples and the artistry displayed in the various dances.

‘I spotted the winners in the first round…Their technique was strong, but that wasn’t enough to win. This couple had brilliant musicality…This couple toyed with the music, two frisky mice that teased the old tomcat. Holding here, hastening there, they arrived everywhere almost, but not quite, late. They used their bodies the way award-winning actors use speech – meaning forged through pacing.’

I really enjoyed The Winner although, for me, the ending slightly let it down because it covered a period of years in a few chapters and I missed the intensity of earlier in the book. I felt happy for how things turned out for Nina but less so for Carly, although this just proves how much the author managed to engage me in their stories!

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and iRead Book Tours in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, realistic, dramatic

Erin Bomboy Head ShotAbout 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.

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Blog Tour: Find Me by J.S. Monroe

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Find Me blog tour banner

I’m delighted to be co-hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for Find Me, a tense, suspenseful thriller by J. S. Monroe. You can read an extract from Find Me below.

Plus there’s a chance to win your own copy of Find Me (UK & ROI only). You can enter here.  Entries close on 17th September 2017.

FindMeAbout the Book

Five years ago, Rosa walked to the pier in the dead of night, looked into the swirling water, and jumped. She was a brilliant young Cambridge student who had just lost her father. Her death was tragic, but not unexpected.

Was that what really happened? The coroner says it was suicide. But Rosa’s boyfriend, Jar, can’t let go. He sees Rosa everywhere – a face on the train, a figure on the cliff. He is obsessed with proving that she is still alive.

And then he gets an email. Find me, Jar. Find me, before they do…

 

Format: Paperback (400 pp.)        Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 7th September 2017    Genre: Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

 

Find Find Me on Goodreads

Extract: Find Me by J S Monroe

After the pub we went for a meal, even though I wasn’t hungry. I don’t know where it was, some place down by the river. I was still pretty drunk – until it was time to pay.

And that’s when I met him. Why now, with so little time left? Why not in my first term?

He was making his way around the table, taking payment from each of us. One bill, split fourteen ways, can you believe it? But this guy never complained, not even when he came round to me and my card didn’t work.

‘The machine’s acting up,’ he said, so quietly I could hardly hear him. ‘We’re out of range. Best you come up to the till now.’

‘Sorry?’ I said, looking up at him. I’m not short, but this guy was tall, a big bear of a man with a clean-shaven chin and a soft Irish brogue.

He leant down, checking that no one else could hear. His breath was warm and he smelt clean. Sandalwood, maybe.

‘So we need to try your card again, nearer the till.’

There was something about the look he gave me, an avuncular, reassuring smile, that made me get up from the table and follow him over to the till. And I liked his big tidy hands, a discreet ring on his thumb. But he wasn’t my type at all. The wide sweep of his jawline came together too sharply at the chin and his mouth was pinched.

It was only when we were out of earshot that he turned to me and said in a louder voice that my card had been rejected.

‘I’ve been advised to take the card from you and cut it up.’ He grinned. His big face brightened and gained better proportions when he did that: the chin softened and his cheekbones rose up.

‘What do we do?’ I asked, pleased that we seemed to be in this together. I’ve been broke since the day I arrived.

He looked down at me, realising for the first time, I think, quite how drunk I was. And then he glanced across at the table.

‘The cast?’ he said.
‘How did you guess?’
‘No tips.’
‘Maybe they’ll leave one in cash,’ I said, suddenly defensive of my new friends.
‘That would be a first.’
‘You’re not an actor yourself then,’ I said.
‘No. I’m not an act-or.’

He made me feel embarrassed by the word, rhyming the second syllable with ‘roar’.

‘So what do you do when you’re not being rude about my friends?’ I asked.
‘I’m a student.’
‘Here? At Cambridge?’
 It was a stupid, patronising question and he spared me an answer. ‘I write a bit, too.’

‘Great.’ But I wasn’t listening. My mind was already wandering back to my contribution to the bill and the fact that I had no means of paying. I don’t want any of the cast to know I’m penniless, even if it goes with the profession. And I can’t tell them that my financial worries – all my worries – will soon be over. I can’t tell anyone.

‘There’s enough money in the tip box, from other diners, for me to cover it,’ he said.

For a moment I was lost for words. ‘And why would you want to do that?’

‘Because I think it’s the first time you’ve hung out with these people and you’re trying to impress them. Not being able to pay might cost you the part. And I’m already looking forward to coming to watch. Ibsen’s all right, you know.’

We looked at each other in silence. He caught me by the elbow as I swayed too much. I was starting to feel very sick.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Can you take me home?’ The tone of my voice – slurred, pleading – sounded all wrong, as if I was listening to some- one else talking.

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J S Monroe_author pic_credit Hilary StockAbout the Author

Jon Stock, now writing as J.S. Monroe, read English at Cambridge University, worked as a freelance journalist in London and was a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4. He was also a foreign correspondent in Delhi for the Daily Telegraph and was on its staff in London as Weekend editor. He left Telegraph in 2010 to finish writing his acclaimed Daniel Marchant spy trilogy and returned in 2013 to oversee the paper’s digital books channel. He became a fulltime author in 2015, writing as J.S. Monroe.

His first novel, The Riot Act, was shortlisted by the Crime Writers’ Association for its best first novel award. The film rights for Dead Spy Running, his third novel, were bought by Warner Bros, who hired Oscar-winner Stephen Gaghan (Traffic, Syriana) to write the screenplay. It is currently in development.

He is the author of five novels and lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife, a photographer, and their three children.

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