‘The kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!’ MISTY COPELAND

‘Vibrant, propulsive and inspiring’ TIA WILLIAMS

Harlem 1969; it’s the height of the Civil Rights era and the community is still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King. Arthur Mitchell, the first Black principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, takes his protest to the stage and establishes the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Here begins the story of the five extraordinary women at the heart of this book.

Both a group biography and a story of a particular time, this is a book about ballet, the enduring allure of ballet for young girls, and about how these pioneers broke into a world that was closed to them and changed ideas of what a classical dancer could be. It is about the heart-breaking impact of the AIDS epidemic which claimed the lives of so many of the male dancers. It’s about racism and activism through art. And it’s about the eternal glamour of ballet; these swans appeared at the grandest opera houses and theatres, dancing at the White House, and even for the Queen. Their fans included Mick Jagger and they performed alongside the likes of Michael Jackson and Josephine Baker.

But most importantly it tells the universal story of female friendship, and in particular how these five young women formed a bond – while experimenting with different ways of dying ballet shoes and tights to match their skin tones – which still endures many decades later.

‘Her books are utterly delightful’ – Daily Mail

In the grey, scholarly world of Cambridge in 1912, Harriet Morton has lived her whole life under the strict rule of her widowed father and miserly aunt. When she is offered the opportunity to dance with the corps de ballet on a tour of the Amazon, she steals away on a boat bound for Manaus.

On arrival, Harriet meets the captivating British aristocrat, Rom Verney. Swept up in the exhilarating life of Brazil and the glorious worlds of romance and ballet, how can Harriet keep her new-found freedom when the life she left behind is catching up with her?

Escape into more classic romance with Eva Ibbotson’s: The Morning Gift, The Secret Countess, A Song for Summer, Magic Flutes and Madensky Square.

Behind the glitz and glamour, Wayne has always felt like an outsider. Sleep reveals the difficulties for a working-class, gay man in handling the prejudices of his generation and living through the Aids epidemic. Wayne was also the shortest principal dancer in the Royal Ballet – he had to spin twice as fast and jump twice as high to succeed.

In this moving – but also laugh-out-loud and gossip filled – memoir, Wayne Sleep shows how he danced his way to success, fulfilment and love, and how he overcame obstacles and prejudice along the way.

‘Beautiful, difficult, and compelling.’  VANITY FAIR

‘Don’t think, dear,’ said Balanchine. ‘Just do.’

For centuries, being a ballerina has been synonymous with being beautiful, thin, obedient and feminine. It is the crucible of womanhood, together with the harassment, physical abuse and eating disorders endemic at top schools. Can we abide this in a post #MeToo world?

Weaving together her own time at America’s most elite ballet school with the lives of renowned ballerinas throughout history, Alice Robb interrogates what it means to perform ballet today. She confronts the all-consuming nature of the form: the obsessive and dangerous practices to perfect the body, the embrace of submission and the idealisation of suffering.

Yet ballet also gifts its dancers ‘brains in their toes’, a way to fully inhabit their bodies and a sanctuary of control away from the pressures of the outside world. Perhaps it is time to reimagine its liberating potential.

***

‘Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the book weaves [Robb’s] early experiences as a dancer with those of her contemporaries, and of famous ballerinas? Don’t Think, Dear is powered by a fundamental love of the art form while exposing the toxic culture that runs through it.’ GUARDIAN

‘[Robb’s] timely book is a critical yet personal examination of classical ballet – a performing art highly dependent on the talent of women – filtered through the lens of 21st-century feminism? she brings a welcome academic rigour to a subject clearly born of deeply held emotions.’  THE TIMES

‘A study of an obsession remarkable for its nuance and insight? It might be easy? to assume that Don’t Think, Dear is Robb’s litany of grievances about a demanding art form in which she failed to flourish. Rather, it is a book about love, even if that love is ultimately unrequited? fascinating.’  TLS

Sadler’s Wells, 1933.

I would kill to dance like her.

Disciplined and dedicated, Olivia is the perfect ballerina. But no matter how hard she works, she can never match identical twin Clara’s charm.  

I would kill to be with her.

As rehearsals intensify for the ballet  Coppélia, the girls feel increasingly like they are being watched. And, as infatuation turns to obsession, everything begins to unravel.

In snow white covered St. Petersburg, young dancer Stana‘s dreams have finally come true – she has been chosen to play the lead role in Tchaikovsky’s new ballet,  The Nutcracker. But with all eyes looking at her, can Stana overcome her nerves and dance like she’s never danced before?
 
From the author of the bestselling  The Sinclair Mysteries, Katherine Woodfine, and Waterstone’s Book Prize winner, Lizzy Stewart, this sumptuous and magical retelling of  The Nutcracker  will transport you on a journey fay beyond the page.  

Praise for Katherine Woodfine’s The Sinclair’s Mysteries series:
‘A wonderful  book, with a  glorious heroine  and a true spirit of adventure’ Katherine Rundell, award-winning author of Rooftoppers
‘Dastardliness on a big scale is uncovered in this well-plotted, evocative novel’ The Sunday Times
‘It’s a dashing plot, an atmospheric setting and an extensive and imaginative cast. Katherine Woodfine handles it all with aplomb’ The  Guardian

Praise for Lizzy Stewart’s There’s a Tiger in the Garden (Winner of the Waterstones  Children’s Book Prize 2017, Illustrated Books Category):
‘A journey of discovery’  The Guardian
‘A stunning testament to the power of imagination’  Metro

Weekly ballet classes are Harriet Morton’s only escape from her intolerably dull life. So when she is chosen to join a corps de ballet which is setting off on a tour of the Amazon, she leaps at the chance to run away for good.

Performing in the grand opera houses is everything Harriet dreamed of, and falling in love with an aristocratic exile makes her new life complete. Swept away by it all, she is unaware that her father and intended fiancé have begun to track her down . . .

‘I have binged on Eva Ibbotson . . . her elegantly written, witty and well-observed fables’ Nigella Lawson, The Times

Rediscover Eva Ibbotson, award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea, in her sweeping historical romances, including The Morning Gift, A Song For Summer and The Secret Countess, originally published as A Countess Below Stairs, Magic Flutes, originally published as The Reluctant Heiress, Madensky Square and A Company of Swans.