Reviewed by Danielle
Title: Like No One is Watching
Series: Dance, Love, Live
Author: Jaime Samms
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Length: 154 pages
BLURB:
Dusty has finally landed a job he thinks he’ll be able to keep long-term, even with his broken brain and bum knee. He didn’t anticipate that cleaning a dance studio would reawaken his yearning to dance—even though he is no longer capable—or that meeting the studio’s director would rouse his dormant libido. Or his sleeping heart.
Conrad thinks his life is finally complete with his successful dance studio and a steady stream of students. When Dusty arrives, he rediscovers his thirst for a man who will let him hand over control and give him the undivided attention he’s never had. The trouble is, Dusty isn’t sure he’s worthy of the studio director’s submission.
To make their relationship work, Dusty will have to trust his ability to dominate the powerful and beautiful dancer, and Conrad will have to stop talking long enough to hear Dusty’s promises
REVIEW:
This story has me doubting myself. I cannot completely figure out what I thought of it and I’m having trouble writing my thoughts down.
The story starts off a bit incoherently. We meet Dusty when he goes to clean the dance studio which Conrad owns. Dusty was once the promise of the ballet world but got his dreams literally crushed with the bashing he recieved caused damage to his brain and his knee. Since then he’s been trying to just keep his head above water.
From some hostility at the beginning, we spiral into a kind of relationship at a pace that I couldn’t quite get until it felt like it was like “ooh there it is”. But then we get to the really good part of this book. This is brilliant writing that’s so intense and compelling. Reading about what Dusty and Conrad are feeling and the things they are going through…their own struggles and emotions… keeps you enthralled throughout the pages and I literarly swallowed them down (without going into detail because I don’t want to spoil it). This is the part that grabbed me completely and kept me reading. Miss Samms portraites Dusty and Conrad’s emotions extremely well while they try to deal with what is happening between them but especially on a personal level.
Dusty finds out that he doesn’t have to say goodbye to dancing completely if he doesn’t want to when he helps promissing student Eliza and she also helps him see that strength can be found in simplicity. While this opens opportunities for him, it also brings a journey to take and insecurity, combined with the completely different upbringing and social class between Dusty and Con. It especially causes Dusty tremendous anxiety.
Then kind of out of the blue I found myself staring at “Epilogue”. Huh? What happened? I was so into this and saw them coming together after struggling to find a way to possibly work through it and then it is done? Yes there is a short epilogue but what happened to the rest of the story? Even when I am writing this review I am still feeling like huh? Hence my confusion I stated at the beginning.
I find myself having read a story that started out in a way that I didn’t quit understand and found difficult to get completely enthralled in. Then when I continued reading, some amazing things and brilliant writing happened and then BOOM! The End! In between I saw glimpses of beauty including great detail in writing and dance experiences but the beginning I still find confusing and the end dissapointing to say the least. Yet I have to admit there is an excerpt of book 2 at the end of this and it still fascinates me and makes me want to read it. So in the end I settled on 3.5 hearts (rating the different parts of the book seperately beginning 2, middle 5 and end 3 and coming to a combined result)
PS: What a beautiful appropriate cover!
RATING: 
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