Review by booksalacarte - A Dance of Lies

booksalacarte 's review for:

A Dance of Lies by Brittney Arena

2.5

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

2⭐️1.5🌶️

Romantasy

Dancer FMC

Disability rep

Chronic pain rep

Political intrigue

Betrayal

Prophacy

Fates

Tw: emotional abuse, physical, abuse, alcoholism, PTSD, panic attack, trama, violence against children, sexual themes, graphic death, chronic illness, disability, and sexism.

The premise of A Dance of Lies, the first book in this story, is really good. A traumatized and wrongly convicted dancer who suffered considerable nerve damage in prison for two years is brought out to become a spy for the very man who put her there.

The execution just didn’t live up to the possibility. It was too character driven for my taste. There was so much potential for the plot to take off, but it seemed to crawl instead.

The dance movements are overwritten and use French ballet terms… in a world where there is no France. Also, non dancers wouldn’t know what those terms were and would have to look them up in order to visualize the dance/movement. But the dance scenes were written very well.

The info dumps for world-building happen only when it seems like the author has written herself into a corner. This is definitely fantasy light. The fantasy elements were barely explored, making them seem like an after thought.

The characters were… alright. The FMC didn’t come as fully into her confidence as fully as I had hoped with a spy plot until the final pages.

The main couple was missing the chemistry until the big reveals.

In summary I found it overwritten and under developed.

Thank you Random House, Del Rey and NetGalley for the gifted eARC. All opinions are my own.

Content Warnings