Review: Pas De Deux: A Dance For Two by Lynn Turner
Pas de Deux by Lynn Turner Published by Independently Published on April 4th 2018
Pages: 426
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It's said the artist is born of a damaged soul...
Wilhelmina Allende is a prima ballerina. When tragedy turns her beloved Paris into a gilded cage, she jumps at the chance to work with one of the most prolific choreographers she's ever seen. But Zack's style is way out of her comfort zone. So is his teaching method. And his humor. And his everything. He's a charming little connard. It's hard not to like him. Merde. What has she gotten herself into?
Zachary Coen's first musical is opening on Broadway. Much like his life, it's anything but conventional, so hiring Mina is simply out of the question. She's too...classical. Too perfect. She's all wrong for the role. Then he meets her in person and sees her cracks. Her broken pieces. How unique and beautiful each one is. And he can't help but notice how her edges seem to fit his...perfectly.
Just when teaming up seems to be working, the monsters they've kept hidden threaten to rip it all apart.
“We were never meant to be perfect. Our pieces wouldn’t fit together that way.”
The beauty is in the details. Give me developed characters, a solid plot, and great chemistry and I’ll definitely be intrigued. Pas De Deux by Lynn Turner ticked off all of those boxes for me.
Wilhelmina is an immensely talented ballerina, Zack is a prolific choreographer; their chemistry is evident from the beginning. Their deep love for music may be where their similarities end, at least in the beginning. They are opposites in a lot of ways; from their learning styles and sense of humor to their upbringing. Their love story was a slow burn; a very patient fire that eventually roared to life. While I usually have a love/hate relationship with very slow burn romance plot points, it worked really well in this novel. Their mutual passion for music and the arts made their chemistry sizzle even more as they grew in love together.
I really liked the dance scenes between these two characters. Admittedly, I don’t know much about the intricacies of ballet but Lynn was so vivid in her descriptions that I felt that I was present, almost invading their privacy, as I watched them dance. Dancing for these two was emotionally cathartic, in a way. Zack and Mina were able to shed more layers of themselves and expose more of their feelings through every caress, spin, turn and dip.
The plot twist at the end kind of threw me for a loop and I do have to say that this book felt a bit longer than it was. There were a few parts that I felt could have been cut and we would still get the gist of the story would be evident and we’d be able to read it just as well. However, other than that I thought this was a great story.
There was laughter and love with the music (shout to the playlists created by the author) serving as the perfect background throughout the novel. Pas De Deux is a solid dance romance worth reading.
P.S. I will be watching the Misty Copeland documentary this weekend as a result of reading this romance.
Natalya is the author of All The Things I Never Said, a soul-stirring collection of short stories, prose and love letters for the soulful wanderers, the brokenhearted and the hopeless romantics.
You can follow her rantings and occasional sparks of brilliance on Twitter @NatalyaMuncuff.
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