Blog Tour Review - The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz

Hello and thanks for stopping by to check out my review of The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to take part in this blog tour thanks to Xpresso Book Tours and I'm very glad I did. So lets not waste any more time, here it is. 

The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz

Published 17th October 2017 by Swoon Reads

Genre - Contemporary/ Young Adult

Star Rating - ***.5

Goodreads Challenge - 68/50

I received an e-copy of this book from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. 

Synopsis

When the music stops, the dance begins.

Seventeen-year-old Penny is a lead dancer at the Grande Teatro, a finishing school where she and eleven other young women are training to become the finest ballerinas in Italy. Tucked deep into the woods, the school is overseen by the mysterious and handsome young Master who keeps the girls ensconced in the estate – and in the only life Penny has never known.

But when flashes of memories, memories of a life very different from the one she thinks she’s been leading, start to appear, Penny begins to question the Grand Teatro and the motivations of the Master. With a kind and attractive kitchen boy, Cricket, at her side, Penny vows to escape the confines of her school and the strict rules that dictate every step she takes. But at every turn, the Master finds a way to stop her, and Penny must find a way to escape the school and uncover the secrets of her past before it’s too late.

Goodreads 

My Thoughts

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.

Overall Rating (3.5*)

This book is avaliable from the following links.

Amazon  B&N  Kobo  iBooks 

Author Bio

Nikki Katz is an author and editor living in sunny San Diego with her three children. With a BS in aerospace engineering, Nikki first put her writing skills to use publishing four nonfiction books. She moved on to writing young adult fiction, her favorite genre to read as well. The Midnight Dance is her debut novel.

 Website  Goodreads  Twitter  Facebook 

So thanks again for stopping by to check out my review of The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz, I hope you enjoyed. If you'd like to check out the rest of the stops on the tour please check out the our schedule here.