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A review by gjj274
The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz
4.0
I received a copy of this book from Xpresso Blog Tours in exchange for an honest review.
This is the story of Penny who attends an elite boarding school in rural Italy with 11 other girls. This is the only life she has ever known and under the watchful eye of the mysterious master she is learning to become a great ballerina. Things seem to be going great for Penny until she starts remembering things. Memories of a past she doesn't recognise start to return and shes on a mission to uncover her secret past and find out just how she came to be in the life she is today. Throughout this novel we follow a duel timeline of then and now. We follow Penny's life in the estate and watch as the life that she knows begins to unravel. Alongside this we follow the story of Cirillo and watch who he becomes as he grows up. At first these timelines don't seem to have a direct link between each other however, as the story develops we see them merge together and this gives us a greater understanding of the events in the main story line.
Things happen very quickly in this novel. Its quite fast paced and a lot happens and develops in a short space of time. It was easy to keep up though as the author was quite clear in her writing and there was no fluff and this speed definitely helped to build up the suspense. When I first heard about this novel it was marketed as a contemporary, which isn't usually my thing. However, after reading the synopsis it felt as though there would be some mystery/suspense aspects and I was right. I would also go as far as to say there are some magical realism aspects too.
I really liked the writing style, I found it to be very mysterious. The author took us on a journey of Penny's existence and I felt invested in her story. The way we transitioned between Penny's current life and her memories was quite disconcerting which I really liked. This really helped us to experience just what things must of felt like for her. The author also did a good job of keeping up the air of mystery and suspense as we went through there were a couple of plot twists in the second half of the story, not massive ones, but enough to keep the story moving. Also twists that I didn't see coming which was great.
The characters were interesting too and fairly well developed. I liked Penny's personality, she was determined and resolved throughout the story. She always thought of others above herself and was resigned to saving everyone. I also really liked Cricket he was very sweet and was always looking out for others. I did find that Penny's sudden attraction to Cricket in the beginning was a bit off however, this is explained later on in the book and makes a lot of sense. Master on the other hand was a total master manipulator. His hold over the girls was very creepy and he is definitely up there in the great villain department.
Overall I found this story to be very mysterious and suspenseful, much more so than your usual contemporary. The reason I marked it down to 3.5* was that I found it difficult to get going again once I stopped reading however, once I was reading I found it hard to stop. It would be one I would recommend to people who love suspense and mystery.
This review can also be found on my blog at https://gemmasbooknook.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/blog-tour-review-midnight-dance-by.html
This is the story of Penny who attends an elite boarding school in rural Italy with 11 other girls. This is the only life she has ever known and under the watchful eye of the mysterious master she is learning to become a great ballerina. Things seem to be going great for Penny until she starts remembering things. Memories of a past she doesn't recognise start to return and shes on a mission to uncover her secret past and find out just how she came to be in the life she is today. Throughout this novel we follow a duel timeline of then and now. We follow Penny's life in the estate and watch as the life that she knows begins to unravel. Alongside this we follow the story of Cirillo and watch who he becomes as he grows up. At first these timelines don't seem to have a direct link between each other however, as the story develops we see them merge together and this gives us a greater understanding of the events in the main story line.
Things happen very quickly in this novel. Its quite fast paced and a lot happens and develops in a short space of time. It was easy to keep up though as the author was quite clear in her writing and there was no fluff and this speed definitely helped to build up the suspense. When I first heard about this novel it was marketed as a contemporary, which isn't usually my thing. However, after reading the synopsis it felt as though there would be some mystery/suspense aspects and I was right. I would also go as far as to say there are some magical realism aspects too.
I really liked the writing style, I found it to be very mysterious. The author took us on a journey of Penny's existence and I felt invested in her story. The way we transitioned between Penny's current life and her memories was quite disconcerting which I really liked. This really helped us to experience just what things must of felt like for her. The author also did a good job of keeping up the air of mystery and suspense as we went through there were a couple of plot twists in the second half of the story, not massive ones, but enough to keep the story moving. Also twists that I didn't see coming which was great.
The characters were interesting too and fairly well developed. I liked Penny's personality, she was determined and resolved throughout the story. She always thought of others above herself and was resigned to saving everyone. I also really liked Cricket he was very sweet and was always looking out for others. I did find that Penny's sudden attraction to Cricket in the beginning was a bit off however, this is explained later on in the book and makes a lot of sense. Master on the other hand was a total master manipulator. His hold over the girls was very creepy and he is definitely up there in the great villain department.
Overall I found this story to be very mysterious and suspenseful, much more so than your usual contemporary. The reason I marked it down to 3.5* was that I found it difficult to get going again once I stopped reading however, once I was reading I found it hard to stop. It would be one I would recommend to people who love suspense and mystery.
This review can also be found on my blog at https://gemmasbooknook.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/blog-tour-review-midnight-dance-by.html