Enjoy the Dance by Heidi Cullinan - My Thoughts
I was able to read this early because I am a patron of Heidi's on Paetron.com. :)
Heidi is one of my favourite authors and I was so looking forward to this book, the second book in the Dancing series. The first one, Dance With Me, was the first book of Heidi's that I ever read and I adored it, so I was very eager to read this long-awaited sequel.
The first quarter of Enjoy the Dance was disappointing. (And it kills me to say it.) I felt as if I was reading a series of articles on the GLBQT homeless youth community in Minnesota. I understand that this is a subject very dear to the author's heart and it should be important to all of us, but selfishly, I didn't want to feel lectured while reading about Spenser and Tomas' love story, and that's how I felt during the first quarter of the book while the teenager that brings them together, Duon, got settled. I learned little about any of the characters - and characters that I love are Heidi's strong suit, so this was especially disappointing. I know the author possesses the talent to make her readers aware of all this stuff through the presentation of her characters, but it didn't happen this time, I'm afraid.
But the other three-quarters of the book were WONDERFUL! The characters came to life, the relationships were created and things began to move forward. Spenser, the kindergarten teacher is a lovely character. Calm, sweet, smart, instinctively wise... I liked him an awful lot. The object of his affections, the fellow who lives across the hall, Tomas, is the dancer and some of my favourite scenes have to do with him dancing with Duon and Laurie (one of the MCs from the first book) en pointe.
Spenser and Tomas fall in love easily and quietly and simply, despite all the hurdles they have to overcome - Duon's future with them, marriage equality, immigration problems, prejudice at Spenser's job, Spenser's scars from his youth in the system... my GOD there were alot of them! And I ended up in tears more than a couple of times during the final chapters.
So, despite the near lifeless read of the first quarter of the book, the rest of it picked up most wonderfully and gave me the Heidi read I love so much.
