Review: "The Music and the Mirror" by Lola Keeley

The Music and the Mirror by Lola Keeley
Published April 2018 via Ylva
★★★

In New York, Anna is thrilled—she's the newest corps member of the Metropolitan Ballet, and she's eager to prove her worth and maybe work her way up the ladder. The last thing she expects is to be catapulted up the ladder by the artistic director, who sees unlimited potential...on the stage, and maybe in the bedroom.

I have a soft spot for ballet books, to say nothing of queer ballet books. It's interested to see the power dynamics here, because usually in a boss/employee romance or an age-gap romance, the older and/or more powerful person will be a man, and the younger and/or less powerful person will be a woman. Here we have two women, which changes the dynamic somewhat: Victoria isn't afraid to throw her weight and power around (she spends a fair amount of time firing people, actually), but—perhaps because the author or editor was concerned about relationship ethics?—she manages to quell her inner asshole enough that there's never a point where Anna worries that if the relationship goes south, so will Anna's position in the company. (Anna should worry about this. She's quite naïve at times, in ways that are unlikely to serve her well in the long run. But at least Victoria is aware of the pitfalls.)

Victoria's meant to be an ice queen, which is not my favorite ever trope but I know is popular. She does get a bit easily impressed for someone who is supposed to be so hardened, though: a quick search for the word "impressed" tells me that Victoria is impressed when: Anna mentions that she was accepted to good art schools; Anna mentions that she's been to another dancer's home; another dancer shows loyalty by offering to report back after meeting someone; Anna picks herself up quickly after some sabotage; Anna has a half-full bottle of vodka rather than a full one; Victoria tells Anna who was behind the sabotage and Anna doesn't react much; Anna knows the difference between traditional and classical; Anna can handle a lift; Anna continues to do well with lifts; the costume designer comes up with something Victoria likes.

There's a lot going on—Anna's sudden promotion from least-experienced corps member to principal, Anna's tragic backstory, Victoria's tragic backstory, a secret aunt(!), glass in pointe shoes, an injury for Anna, an injury for another dancer, Victoria's likely alcohol addiction, another dancer's likely addiction to god knows what, and on and on it goes. At a bare minimum I'd have liked to see the secret aunt plot cut, and maybe also the glass-in-pointe-shoes bit (which just feels a bit clichéd). And then let the characters learn more from each other, maybe, or explore those addictions rather than leaving them hanging, with more than one woman in the book unable to sleep without a hefty dose of substance of choice. Honestly, I'd have been curious about where this might have gone without the romance; Victoria's substance use alone makes me think that she's not in a great place to start something, and I never really got any chemistry between her and Anna. Could have been interesting to see the two of them get to flex their characters a bit without worrying about making them compatible or necessarily even interested in each other as people. But since this is a romance, it's probably one best suited to readers who are into ice queens and age gaps.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.