Phantom's Dance by Lesa Howard

Welcome to my tour stop for the Phantom's Dance.  You will find a book bio, my review, Lesa's bio, and a giveaway.

Phantom's Dance by Lesa Howard

Genre:  YA Contemporary

Lesa Howard's website

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Description (taken from Book Tour):

Christine Dadey’s family uprooted their lives and moved to Houston for her to attend the prestigious Rousseau Academy of Dance. Now, two years later, Christine struggles to compete among the Academy’s finest dancers, her parents are on the brink of divorce, and she’s told no one about her debilitating performance anxiety and what she’s willing to do to cope with it.

Erik was a ballet prodigy, a savant, destined to be a star on the world’s stage, but a suspicious fire left Erik’s face horribly disfigured. Now, a lonely phantom forced to keep his scars hidden, he spends his nights haunting the theater halls, mourning all he’s lost. Then, from behind the curtain he sees the lovely Christine. The moldable, malleable Christine.

Drawn in by Erik’s unwavering confidence, Christine allows herself to believe Erik’s declarations that he can transform her into the dancer she longs to be. But Christine’s hope of achieving her dreams may be her undoing when she learns Erik is not everything he claims. And before long, Erik’s shadowy past jeopardizes Christine’s unstable present as his obsession with her becomes hopelessly entangled with his plans for revenge.

This is my first Phantom of the Opera retelling.  The ballet dancer Christine is trying to live a normal high-schooler life while attending a prestigious ballet school.  However, her dancing needs to be improved.  And during the moments of first-time dating, a mysterious teacher shows up who promises to help teach Christine become a better dancer.  And that's the twist this book plays on the well-loved classic; no singing involved.

Christine just recently moved to Houston for Christine's dancing.  She wants to become a professional ballet dancer, but she has a problem.  Not all of her teachers thinks she has what it takes to dance.  Meanwhile her home life is barely staying together with her parents avoiding each other.  So when the opportunity to tutor football players comes along, best-friend Jenna encourages Christine to go on a date.  As Christine begins to experience normal real-life things, she still tries to figure out her dancing mishaps.  That is until a pompous mystery-man volunteers to help her.  Suddenly, Christine's dancing life gets better and her social life gets happier.  That is until the Phantom puts a halt to all of this.

As far as the retelling goes, this one followed the storyline really well.  And it puts a fun teenage twist to the plot.  I enjoyed the relationship dynamics between Jenna and Christine.  And Raoul is one of those good guys that every girl wants (or will want eventually).  The only thing I didn't really enjoy is it never really gave the opportunity to put the phantom in a good light.  I mean we all know he's a a bad guy, but I love reading books that can twist your thinking/opinion of a person around until you question whether or not they really are evil.  Really, that was my only complaint.

This story's definitely one for Phantom and ballet lovers.  It gives you a moment to relive high school and first loves with a lurking phantom.

Thanks goes to Lesa Howard and Xpresso Book Tours for providing me a review copy.

Author Bio

I'm not the typical author. I didn't always enjoy reading or writing. While in school, I found it to be a chore I'd just as soon skip. I would rather have been daydreaming, my favorite past time. It wasn’t until I grew up and didn’t have to, that I realized reading was fun. I soon discovered that reading fueled my daydreaming. So, remembering a short story I'd written in high school, I began imagining expanding that story into a book. Before long I found I had loads of ideas for not just the short story but other books and stories as well. Fast forward a few years, a lot of studying about writing, practicing my writing, studying some more, taking classes from people who knew what they were doing, studying and practicing yet more, and ta-dah, author! In the same way I had learned I loved reading, I learned I loved writing, too. It’s just that writing is a lot harder than reading.

Giveaway

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