Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Date Started: 23/3/2013

Date Finished: 28/3/2013

Rated: Five out of Five

Format: Paperback

Series: Yes

Owned: Yes

OMG!!! This book blew me away!  For a starters I love ballet so any story with  ballet as its theme gets three stars before I even open the first page, but this book just blew me away.

Dance of shadows is about Vanessa (nice to know that some authors use normal names still), who is a ballerina who sets off to the elite ballet school for two reasons; one to dance and two to find out what happened to her sister three years before.  

I had seen this book on the shelf at one shop and made a mental note to add this to my TBR list but by the time I got home I forgot the title...I know I'm not good at remembering titles...so I went onto the site of the shop and went through ALL the books before I found the title and quickly put it on my TBR list hoping that I would buy it ASAP.  Once I had bought it, I put it straight I to my my list of books to read.

As I said before, ballet themed novels get three stars before I even open the cover...the cover is amazing and I hoped it wouldn't disappoint...how right I was...disappointment was the last thing on my mind when reading this.  Throughout the book I was transported to the world of the new york ballet academy and I felt like I was part of the class.  The way Yelena Black described the ballet moves and classes, made me picture the moves perfectly.  It surprised me when I found out that Black isn't a ballerina by trade because the way she described everything in the book perfectly sounded like a professional ballerina.   

The characters in the book were extremely likeable and believable and the way that the story was told in third person made it feel like I was like a fly on the wall listening and watching everything that happened.  The pacing of the story was amazing and flowed fluently as if the days were real and clearly defined.

Dance of shadows is one of those book were I couldn't guess what was going to happen next and that's what I like about books like that, they keep you guessing what is going to happen next.  I was surprised when she mixed in the element of demons into the story...most ballet themed novels are about already established ballets and even though Dance of Shadows had a ballet in it, the demon element was a nice twist and refreshing to read.   I would recommend this novel to people who like ballet and to those who don't...this novel is amazing and that's why I give it Five out of Five