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Dance in the Key of Love |
Author: Marianne K. Martin
Published: 2006-06-01 |
List price: $13.95
Our price: $13.95
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As of: January 07th, 2009 08:50:41 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 If You've Read Dawn of the Dance or Mirrors...
You must read the final installment of Marianne K. Martin's series. I must admit up front that Dawn of the Dance was my first lesbian novel and therefore holds a special place in my heart. Katherine and Moni's relationship were described in incredible/exquisite detail...it was like reading poetry. Add to that the whole student crush on teacher dynamic (we've all been there, again if you deny it you're lying) and I couldn't put the book down.
Mirrors was sort of a sequel to Dawn. Unfortunately, we don't get much Katherine and Moni (my biggest disappointment in the book). We do get to explore the changing life of Jean, Moni's mentor and friend, as she deals with her her sexuality and failing marriage. Plus, we get the added bonus of more Shayna Bradley (charismatic lawyer, passionate woman's advocate, and hottie).
Dance in the Key of Love ranks as my second favorite in this series. Paige Flemming is a restless soul. She was also Moni's first female lover (Dawn of the Dance). Years have passed since that first encounter which left Moni heartbroken. Now, Paige is close friends with Moni and Katherine. Yet, Paige harbors a huge secret.
On one of her previous visits, Paige hooked up with Katherine and Moni's friend and fellow teacher, Marissa Langford. Paige is shocked to discover that since her previous visit, Marissa was seriously injured in a car accident. The previously energetic and vivacious Marissa is now a depressed, shell of a woman. She's also close to losing her job as a theater/dance director at the local college.
Paige is guilted into helping Marissa out with the school musical and the two find they have more in common than just a one night stand.
Amongst all of this is a police detective who won't give up on finding Paige Flemming...even sixteen years later.
This was a pleasure to read and it was nice to revisit my favorite and first female couple, Katherine and Moni. My only complaint is that the ending was so abrupt...thus I give it only four stars.
 The Real Thing
Dance in the Key of Love is one of the books that have restored my faith in lesbian fiction. I love to read. I love to read good books, and I'm always looking and hoping to find good lesbian-themed books. I've been dissappointed so many times that when I find one of this quality writing I make the effort to tell others about it.
The story itself is fresh and contemporary, and a refreshing change from the over-used linear plots common to this genre. The characters are fully drawn and perfectly flawed. These are not carbon-copy characters renamed, or borrowed from tv; they are created by an author with a working knowledge of the human psyche. How else could she create characters as diverse as a recovering alcoholic, an abused woman, and the blindly devoted detective and make them so believeable? From page one she had me interested and vested in the lives and motivations of her characters, both major and minor. I wanted to know why they were the way they were and what would happen to them, and I couldn't put the book down until I did.
I won't summarize the story since others have already done that, but will say that it takes a gifted writer to weave the love stories in this book into such a tight plot. If you enjoy a really good love story, written by a writer well-versed in her craft, then put Dance in the Key of Love and this author, Marianne K. Martin, on the top of your must read list.
Is Dancing the Key to Love?
I don't know, but this novel dug deep into Paige's life. Paige has been on her own since her teen years. She has family, but they are estranged.
Marissa has been injuried in an automobile accident and it has left her unable to perform the tasks of her job.
The two meet...Marissa feeling sorry for herself. But her friends are determined to get her up and about. They get Paige to assist in choregraphing the local college musical (via coaching from Marissa).
Find out how the musical turns out and will Paige continue running for her life?
Excellent book
Dance in the Key of Love is the sequel to an earlier novel by Marianne K. Martin called Dawn of the Dance. You don't have to have read the first novel to enjoy this one, but, if it is available, it might be helpful to review it.
Paige Flemming is a woman on the run, from the law and from her past. She has been running for sixteen years to stay out of prison for a crime that she didn't commit, but for which she is willing to take the blame. Sometimes though she needs to stop in a safe place and rest and that means visiting with her friends Moni and Katherine. While she is with them, she feels she'll be safe from the hunters, but she's underestimated the determination of Detective Jack Beamon. He'll do anything to find her, including establishing a relationship with her mother Geri. Marissa Langford was a beautiful and talented professional dancer with a flourishing career until a drunk driver left her broken in many ways. Though she has recovered more than doctors had hoped for, it means nothing because she cannot dance. She is struggling to rebuild her life and determined to prove that she can still choreograph the musical at the local college. Eventually, Marissa faces the fact that she cannot do the job without Paige and that she will have to put aside her feelings about a previous encounter they had. Working together, they will find a relationship that has the potential to solve the emotional and physical injuries both of them have suffered. Even as they help either other though, Jack Beamon is getting closer to his goal of making Paige pay for what he thinks she did.
Marianne K. Martin has written a strong and moving story. Well worth reading.
Survivors One and All
Marianne K. Martin has beautifully answered the question: Whatever happened to Paige Flemming? Paige, a character from Martin's Dawn of the Dance, was full of secrets. Always looking over her shoulder, afraid of hurting and being hurt, she refused to allow herself to experience real love. In Dance in the Key of Love, Paige's resolve softens as she begins to work with, and then to love, dance teacher Marissa Langford. Even as Paige's heart begins to open, we find that the heart of her mother, Geri Panning, is opening to, ironically, the police officer who has been searching for Paige for sixteen years. The plot of this story is full of twists and turns, but resolution and redemption come in the end.
Dance in the Key of Love, like all the previous six novels Martin has written, is more than the usual lesbian romance. Martin weaves real issues into her stories, showing her well-developed characters dealing with the "stuff" of contemporary life. She has a gift of allowing her readers to vicariously experience the feelings of those who deal with devastating accidents that cripple the body and spirit, of those who deal with spousal abuse, of those who deal with terminal illness, of those who deal with drug and alcohol abuse. Never "preachy," she is able to raise the consciousness of the reader as we thoroughly enjoy getting to know the characters about whom she writes. By the end of each book, the characters seem like old friends. This is especially true in Dance in the Key of Love, where the mysteries of Paige Flemming are finally resolved.
Don't start Dance in the Key of Love unless you have time to sit and read it all the way through. You won't want to put it down!
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