DANCE. Guns.
MUSIC. Bullets.
RHYTHM. Pain.
Music in my head, dance in my body, the rhythm of my heart.
How far can you fall in just one month? How quickly can the human spirit be broken? Where does evil hide in plain sight?
Ash wants to dance. Needs it. To leave behind a life of expectation and duty, to set his soul free.
But life is never that simple. Every step is a journey on a new road.
For every action, there is a reaction.
Every choice has a consequence.
And when you meet the wrong person, all bets are off.
Laney tolerates her limitations, pushing quietly at boundaries. But when Ash crashes into her world through rage and violence, it sets off a chain reaction that neither of them expected.
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EXCERPT
1
Laney POV
“Hi, I’m Ash. Are you by yourself?”
It was hard to be sure over the
pounding music, but it sounded as if he had an accent. Something Eastern
European, perhaps Russian? Polish?
I gave him a polite but closed
smile, a cool smile that hid all warmth, a smile for slow servers and rude cab
drivers. A smile for men I didn’t trust.
“No. I’m here with my friends.”
The man looked around him, then
shrugged theatrically. “I don’t see them. Would you like to dance?”
And he held out his hand, obviously
assuming that I would say yes.
I laughed.
“No, I’m not dancing.”
He frowned, his hand still
suspended between us. “But you like to dance?”
I stopped laughing and stared, my
gaze sinking into his, puzzled, annoyed.
“What makes you think I like to
dance?”
He shrugged again and his hand fell
to his side.
“You’re in a nightclub, and you’re
not drinking. So you must be here to dance. Please, dance with me.”
He held out his hand again, but I
shook my head impatiently. “Then go find someone who will dance with you.”
His eyes widened with surprise, and
then he grinned as he leaned on the table, his perfect face inches from mine.
“Maybe I want to dance with you.”
“Then you’ll be waiting a long
time.”
He cocked his head to one side and
I noticed a small beauty spot, shaped like a teardrop beneath his left eye—a
perfect imperfection. Up close I could see that he was younger than I’d
thought, younger than me perhaps, maybe early twenties. My eyes dropped to his
lips and then to his throat. I could see a thin silver chain around his neck.
“I’m a good dancer,” he said,
looking almost wounded at my continued refusal.
He wasn’t lying, but my anger,
smoldering beneath the surface, ignited.
“I’m not dancing!”
“But everyone comes here to dance,”
he insisted, his intense dark eyes so focused, it was unnerving.
“Not me,” I insisted.
He was making me anxious now and I
glanced around for my friends.
“You’ll have a good time.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I snapped,
losing patience. “Your last friend seemed to enjoy herself immensely.”
A dull red flooded his cheeks and
he looked away.
His reaction surprised me. I’d hurt
his feelings, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Maybe I’d like to dance with a
pretty girl for a change,” he said softly, glancing up at me from beneath long
dark lashes.
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EXCERPT
2
Ash POV
“Right,
let’s see what you can do,” Elaine said.
I nodded
at the technician, then pulled off my t-shirt, holding it out like a matador’s
cape, and strode onto the stage with the sultry, dragging steps of the Paso
Doble.
Florence and the Machine poured from the speakers, filling the empty cavern
of the theater.
And I
became the dance. I was a matador, facing a pitiless enemy.
‘Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the
air…’
I stepped
forward with my heels, strong and proud, arms sweeping up from my sides, the
t-shirt whirling around my head and tossed away.
‘I know I can count on you…’
Apel: the
Flamenco stamp.
The
movements were quick and sharp, staccato, chest and head held high, feet
directly underneath my body.
‘Sometimes I feel like saying, “Lord, I just don’t
care”…’
I felt
it. I felt it all. Anger and frustration, the drama of the music: sur place, separation, attack, the open
promenade, the Spanish line—the formal steps flowed through me, but it was
emotion, owning the music, feeling the music, living it. I danced and the world
stopped. All the pain, all the bitterness, lost in the music.
I leapt
through the air, my body shouting the aggression that was sealed inside.
Movements proud and strong.
The music
died away and I stood panting on the stage, sweat pouring down my chest.
Yveta
cheered from the wings and I turned my head to grin at her.
Against
her will, Elaine was impressed. She jerked her head in a quick nod.
“You can
dance.”
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iBookshttp://apple.co/1RkIq5L
Q&A
Q: Where did you get the
idea for this book?
A: I love watching ‘Dancing
with the Stars’ and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. I’m fascinated by the backstage
life of dancers—especially the ability to smile and dance through pain. It
always makes me wonder what else is going on in their lives.
The character of Laney
is one that I’ve had in mind for a while. She’s an amalgamation of several
people I know, as well as some personal experience.
Q: Can you dance?
A: Haha! Depends on who you
ask! I tried ballet at college but I was terrible. And all the good dancers
used the ‘beginners’ class as a warmup, so it was really intimidating, prancing
across the dance studio with the grace of a water buffalo.
I went to salsa lessons
a few years ago with a friend. He kept growling at me, “Stop marching and stop
leading! You’re supposed to look sexy!” Thanks, Max.
Q: How important is music in
your book?
A: Really important. I
thought really carefully about which tracks should accompany parts of the
story. That’s why I added links to various YouTube videos so that readers could
listen to the music while they were reading if they wanted to.
I spent a lot of time
thinking about which songs would make a great samba, or foxtrot of Viennese
waltz.
Q: How did you research the
technical parts?
A: I always enjoy research
and doing background reading. But I’m also really lucky that the author Alana
Albertson is a friend of mine, and she used to be a professional ballroom
dancer, so she was able to doing all the fact-checking. Thanks, Alana! You’re a
honey!
Q: Is Ash based on anyone in
real life?
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*All teasers are courtesy and provided by the author*
About the author
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