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Outside the Limelight

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Outside the Limelight

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Overview

A Kirkus Indie Books of the Month Selection

Rising ballet star Dena Lindgren's dream career is knocked off its axis when a puzzling onstage fall results in a crushing diagnosis: a brain tumor. Looming surgery and its long recovery period prompt the company's artistic director, Anders Gunst, to shift his attention to an overshadowed company dancer: Dena's older sister, Rebecca, with whom Anders once shared a special relationship.

Under the heady glow of Anders' attention, Rebecca thrives, even as her recuperating sister, hobbled and unnoticed, languishes on the sidelines of a world that demands beauty and perfection. Rebecca ultimately faces a painful choice: play by the artistic director's rules and profit, or take shocking action to help her sister.

Exposing the glamorous onstage world of professional ballet, as well as its shadowed wings and dark underbelly, OUTSIDE THE LIMELIGHT examines loyalty, beauty, artistic passion, and asks what might be worth losing in order to help the ones you love. "A lovely and engaging tale of sibling rivalry in the high-stakes dance world." - Kirkus Reviews.

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780986093432
Publisher:	Classical Girl Press
Publication date:	10/30/2016
Series:	Ballet Theatre Chronicles , #2
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Terez Mertes Rose is the author of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles (OFF BALANCE, OUTSIDE THE LIMELIGHT, BALLET ORPHANS, OTHER STAGES) and A DANCER'S GUIDE TO AFRICA. Writing nonfiction as Terez Rose, her work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and online publications. She makes her home with family in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Visit her at The Classical Girl (www.theclassicalgirl.com) where she blogs about ballet, classical music and life, with twin dollops of humor and philosophy thrown in.

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Editorial Reviews

"A lovely and engaging tale of sibling rivalry in the high-stakes dance world." - Kirkus Reviews "Balanchine said dance is music made visible; Terez Mertes Rose's Outside the Limelight is dance made readable. She reveals both the beauty of ballet and its pain in a compelling, deftly written novel that unfolds like a series of perfectly executed chaîné turns. Not to be missed!" -- Tasha Alexander, NYT bestselling author of A Terrible Beauty "Outside the Limelight sweeps us backstage, through the wings, past the dressing rooms, and into the lives of its dancers, where we see them up close, flawed and beautiful." -- Adrienne Sharp, bestselling author of The True Memoirs of Little K and White Swan, Black Swan "From the theater's spotlights and shadows comes a nuanced drama of pain and beauty without one false note. I didn't want it to end!" -- Kathryn Craft, award-winning author of The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy "Outside the Limelight pulls readers into the lives of two sisters, both professional ballerinas. Through their challenges, obstacles and triumphs we are reminded that life is a complicated yet wondrous journey, and that love--artistic, romantic and familial--is one of the strongest forces of all." -- Zippora Karz, former soloist, New York City Ballet, author of The Sugarless Plum and Ballerina Dreams "Readers will relish this fresh, enlightened insider's look at two talented dancer sisters beset by professional rivalry & bound by love. This glowing novel is full of heart. Enchanting." -- Sari Wilson, author of Girl Through Glass "In Outside the Limelight, Terez Mertes Rose once again manages to perfectly capture the ethereal beauty of the ballet. It's a story as rich, heartbreaking and uplifting as any ballet masterwork, with characters who stay with you long after the final act." -- Lauren E. Rico, author of Reverie and Rhapsody

From the Publisher

★ 2016-10-26
A performance accident leaves a ballet soloist fighting for her career and her life. This follow-up to Rose's first installment of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles (Off Balance, 2015) finds the author once again tackling a dancecentric family drama, this time spotlighting the bond between two sisters. Dena Lindgren is shocked to find herself promoted to soloist ahead of her older sister, Rebecca, by Anders Gunst, the omniscient and imperious director of the West Coast Ballet Theatre. "You lack your sister's looks," the always-sensitive Anders tells her, "but it's that very omission that makes you a more interesting dancer to watch." Of course, this makes her relationship with Rebecca tense, but there's something else throwing her life off course, "a nameless, fuzzy disequilibrium" that seems to be causing slight deafness and, during a performance of Spirit Hour, causes her to trip and fall. Twice. Doctors confirm it: there's a tumor locked onto her vestibulocochlear nerve, and it's going to bring her career to a halt. Meanwhile, both sisters wrestle with surprising romances; social media brings some of the ballet world's dark secrets to light; and readers finds themselves caught up in the way a close group of dancers can descend into "high school-level cattiness all over again." Rose is marvelous at subverting her readers' expectations: at first, they expect Rebecca to be unsympathetic and opportunistic, but she's far more complex than that. In alternating chapters, readers learn as much about one sister as they do the other. And the siblings aren't the only two fully rounded characters. Their father, Conrad; the loyal Lana; the whistleblower Tatum; and much of the company are brought believably and even poignantly to life. The quiet beauty of the prose rarely calls attention to itself but carries the reader smoothly through the tale with no bumps in the road ("It all starts and ends with the artistic director. Casting in ballets. Daily rehearsal schedules. Careers. One word from him, an index finger raised, a frown creasing his brow, could change everything"). And the glossary of dance terms at the end of the book proves a marvelous resource for the uninitiated. This is a novel both for ballet lovers and those new to the art. A lovely and engaging tale of sibling rivalry in the high-stakes dance world.

Kirkus Reviews

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About the Author

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