Just letting everyone know, the three books in the Fever series are now up for pre-sale orders on Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords. They will soon be up in the ibookstore and Barnes and Noble, and paperback copies will soon be available on Amazon and other online sites as well. I’m so excited to hear what everyone thinks of Sasha and Rory’s story 🙂
Don’t forget, tonight is the beginning of America’s Ballroom Challenge on PBS! It’s the first of a three-part series. The initial episode features the American Smooth and Rhythm competitions. In Rhythm, I’ll be rooting for my looooongtime favorites, Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine and Liana Churilova, pictured at left. Photo from here.
I have to admit I’m so out of it, I’m not very familiar with any of the current Smooth contestants. But from their photos and bio, I can’t wait to see this couple – Travis and Jaimee Tuft!
In preparation for publication of my ballroom-set romance series, I thought I’d point to a few other books I’ve recently read and enjoyed that are also largely about ballroom dance or ballet:
Patrice Tanaka’s charming memoir illustrates how learning to ballroom dance made her a better business partner, CEO of her publicity company, and all-around happier person.
Sharon Savoy is an icon in the world of ballroom show dance. She’s one of the first dancers I ever saw perform a cabaret routine, at a swing championship in Atlanta, and I was immediately mesmerized. Her memoir traces her early days training with Balanchine (which I hadn’t known!) at the School of American Ballet, to becoming a Blackpool show dance champ.
American dance fans likely remember Pasha Kovalev from So You Think You Can Dance, where he was a finalist on one of that show’s early seasons. Since then he’s gone on to become a champion pro dancer on Strictly Come Dancing -the U.K.’s version of Dancing With the Stars. (He’s also my former teacher 🙂 ) I didn’t even know he had a memoir out!
Former New York City Ballet dancer Sophie Flack’s enjoyable young adult novel is set in the ballet world. What I found most compelling were the main character’s body image issues and the way she was treated for not having the ideal ballet body.
Former New York City Ballet principal Jenifer Ringer’s memoir deals largely with her eating disorder, which led to “Sugarplumpgate.” Her writing and voice are so sweet and engaging, you really feel like you know her through this book.
Carlos Acosta’s memoir delineates his journey from growing up poor in Havana with a super hardass father, to becoming a superstar at the Royal Ballet.
I haven’t yet read Misty Copeland’s memoir, about her journey from underprivileged youth to becoming the first African American female soloist at a major ballet company. As I said in an earlier post, I’ve loved watching her dance at ABT for a long time now and must read this.
One of my all time favorite books, Colum McCann’s novel is a fictionalized account of the fascinating life of Rudolf Nureyev.
I’m sure I’ll find more later. Until then, happy reading 🙂
Yulia Zagoruychenko and Max Kozhevnikov, now a classic:
I first saw them dance in 2006, at Blackpool, when they first finaled, and they’re still overall my favorite couple. Sergey Surkov is so powerful, and Melia is somehow both strong and delicate. Their dances are always so dramatic and passionate. And when you see them together it’s so clear how much in love they are 🙂 Here’s a high-charged Paso:
Hey everyone,
So excited to announce that I am finally getting ready to launch my FEVER series, the first in my INFECTIOUS RHYTHM series of romance novels set in the world of ballroom dancing. FEVER is a trilogy, and I’m launching all three books at once, in early June. Read more about each book here.
Infectious Rhythm is the name of the Hollywood dance studio where FEVER’s hero, Sasha, and heroine, Rory, meet.
Look for other books / series to follow, featuring other couples who meet at that studio.
I’m super excited about this project. As everyone who’s read my blog well knows, I’m a huge dance lover. I’m also an avid reader of romance novels and fun, contemporary fiction featuring smart, complex women and mysterious, intriguing men. And, there just doesn’t seem to me to be a better blend than dance and romance 🙂
In upcoming days and weeks, I’ll be posting cover reveals, as well as some of my favorite dancer video clips, photos, and interviews.
I had such a blast writing this series. I hope you all have as much fun reading as I did writing!
With my move, I didn’t have time to keep up with it, but this season Pasha Kovalev was a professional dancer on the British TV show Strictly Come Dancing (which our Dancing With the Stars is modeled on). He danced with British celeb Chelsea Healey (photo above).
It’s just been announced that he and another pro dancer from that show, Katya Virshilas, will get their own tour this spring. They’ll be performing in various theaters in England. Local dancers will join them, but they’ll be the headliners. Hope it’ll eventually come to the U.S.
Makes me so happy to know that Pasha’s doing so well with his career. I wonder what Anya Garnis is up to these days. I don’t know of Virshilas. Any of my ballroom peeps familiar with her?
World Latin champ Yulia Zagoruychenko (whom this blogger adores, as everyone here knows) is auctioning off one of her championship dresses to help friend and fellow dancer Julia Ivleva with her cancer treatments. Ivleva is a pro standard dancer who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer in both lungs, though she’s never smoked and, like all dancers, maintains a healthy lifestyle. It really can happen to anyone… Also like many (probably most) dancers, Ivleva has no health insurance. What a nightmare. There’s lots of money in the world of pro / am ballroom dance (I mean possessed by the students), so I’m hoping people help her out. Here’s the link to Zagoruychenko’s auction. If you can’t afford the dress but wish to donate go here. If all students donated the cost of a private lesson or two, that would be a pretty big sum.
Here’s a video of Ivleva dancing with her partner Igor Litvinov:
Hi guys – I’ve just begun a new Tumblr blog, called Literary Aperitif, pairing two of my loves (other than dance of course): books and booze. I wanted to call the blog something along those lines but didn’t realize there were about 100,000 websites, meetups, blogs, books, book clubs, webzines, and what have you, all with variations of that name… Anyway, I plan for that one to be photo-heavy, minimalist on words (unlike this blog :S)
Sorry once again that I’m so behind here. Part of the reason for that is that I write so many review-style posts, and it really takes a long time (as opposed to posting pics and doing mini photo-based essays, which takes virtually no time at all). And I haven’t had a lot of time since I began working full time plus again. Nevertheless, I maintain fantasies of spending this weekend blogging about: the Mariinsky at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Royal Danish Ballet’s recent visit to NY, the Paris Opera Ballet’s Children of Paradise (streamed live via Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series), the Bolshoi’s Swan Lake (ditto), a wrap-up of American Ballet Theater’s Met season, a wrap-up of So You Think You Can Dance thus far (including what’s been said during some of the Friday afternoon over-the-phone press conferences I’ve participated in each week with the eliminated contestants), and the Manhattan Dancesport Championship held in Brooklyn last weekend. Okay, I’m obviously not going to get to it all this weekend – especially when I have more Mariinsky to see tomorrow and Saturday – but I’ll have material for the rest of the summer, if you can bear with me that long 🙂
Pasha Kovalev is going to be a pro dancer on this season’s Strictly Come Dancing, the British version of our Dancing With the Stars. Apparently, he’s replacing an American dancer, Jared Murillo (whom I’ve never heard of), because Murillo, at 5’9″ is too short to partner most of this season’s taller ladies. Pasha’s only 5’10” but that seems to make all the difference. Go Pasha! Hmmm, wish I had access to British television…
(Photo above taken by me, when he and Anya first appeared in Burn the Floor on Broadway).
