Review: "Pointe of Pride" by Chloe Angyal

Pointe of Pride by Chloe Angyal
Published May 2024 via Amberjack Publishing
★★★★

Carly's goals are pretty straightforward: she wants to make it out of the ballet corps and into a soloist position before she retires. She wants to be her best friend's best-ever maid of honor. And she wants her vagina to stop, well, cock-blocking her.

Enter Nick. His goals are also pretty straightforward: with his dance career over, he's desperate to transition into photography. He wants to be his best friend's best-ever best man. (See what I did there?) And if there's a way to get over his recent heartbreak in the process...

Needless to say, these things are not as A-to-Zed as Carly and Nick hope.

I read this based on the strength of Angyal's first two books (one nonfiction, one romance—it's the romantic leads of book 1 who are getting married in this one), and it doesn't disappoint. There's a lot going on here: both characters questioning their futures and their personal and professional worth; what Carly is working through medically; the wedding; Carly's determination to earn her place rather than relying on her family's name (and money); and on it goes. Neither Carly nor Nick is entirely my preferred sort of romantic lead (I lean towards characters who keep their emotions in check and talk things out; Carly has quite a bit of a temper, and Nick in particular is not exactly keen on open communication), but they're well done, and I appreciate that they're quite different characters than Heather and Marcus of Pas de Don't.

The speed with which Carly gains social media followers doesn't really make sense to me—she starts to get big jumps in followers as soon as she starts posting, and I would find it more realistic if she'd already had a number of followers that was, like...not big enough to impress publicity directors but big enough to impress your average Joe?...or if there'd been more to-do about other dancers with bigger followings sharing her posts, or something. (The flip side of that is that I expect that professional dancers probably do have an easier time building follower count than...I don't know, UPS drivers...because their work is by nature aesthetic in a way that usually translates well to social media, and it's done literally as a performance for the public. How many times have you looked up a performer on social media after an event? And how many times have you gone looking for your UPS drivers on social media?)

Probably my favorite thing is this, though: Carly's not a principal dancer. She's been in the corps for years, and she knows that if she doesn't make it out of the corps soon, she never will—and that when a principal retires, there will be articles in big-name newspapers; when a corps dancer retires, there will be applause backstage. It's not that prestige is the point, but...we all dream, don't we? And most people don't make it to the top. They don't have their name in the lights, and romance novels aren't written about them. It's nice to see a version of the story where the heroine has the unusual job of dancer but is still playing a quieter role.

Not sorry that this seems to be turning into a series, because I'd like to see more dance romance on my shelves.

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