Author:Jenny Holmes
**The first book in Jenny Holmes's brand-new WWII saga series - The Ballroom Girls. Perfect for fans of Nancy Revell and Donna Douglas. Preorder now!**
Blackpool, summer 1942.
Meet the Ballroom Girls: Sylvia, Pearl and Joy. Three girls dancing through the turbulence of WWII.
Sylvia is the spoiled only child of an ambitious mother, Lorna Ellis, who runs a dancing school in Blackpool. Approaching 21, Sylvia is under pressure to scoop up prizes by fair means or foul.
Pearl is the oldest daughter in a large, chaotic family who all work at the Pleasure Beach. She often sneaks away to watch ballroom contestants in their glittery finery. She dreams of joining them, but will she ever be anything other than an outsider looking in?
Joy is an evacuee who lost her parents to the Blitz. Now she lives and works in a shabby boarding house and works as a cleaner. Though shy and modest, she falls in love with the newest dance craze - the American Jitterbug. When Lorna's rival dance school spots her talent, Joy is given a chance to break away from boarding house drudgery and enter the glamorous world of professional ballroom dancing.
Through blackouts and air raids, the excitement of the ballroom never dims. But competition is fierce. Will the Ballroom Girls find what they're looking for in the joy of the dance?
Readers LOVE Jenny Holmes's WWII sagas:
'There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book' 5 star review
'In all the women at war series of book I have read so far, I think this is the best' 5 star review
'I couldn't put this book down' 5 star review
'Loved the whole story. Hated it coming to an end' 5 star review
'Just the kind of book I like' 5 star review
Full of drama, romance and the thrill of dancing, this [is a] heartwarming and uplifting story
—— Lancashire PostAnyone who recalls dancing at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom during their summer holidays will love this latest romance.
—— Choice magazineWe are completely transported in this delightful, escapist read
—— Woman magazineChang makes a spell rise from every wound, and I'm caught all the way up in this magic... one of the best emerging writers out there.
—— Danez SmithK-Ming Chang's prose ravishes, ravages, rampages. This is an absolute lightning strike of a debut. The world grew brighter as I read it.
—— Kelly Link, author of GET IN TROUBLEGorgeous and gorgeously grotesque . . . Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel-about multiple generations of Taiwanese-American women in Arkansas whose lives are imbued with cultural and familial myth-is utterly alive.
—— O: The Oprah MagazineThe poet K-Ming Chang's debut novel, Bestiary, offers up a different kind of narrative, full of magic realism that reaches down your throat, grabs hold of your guts and forces a slow reckoning with what it means to be a foreigner, a native, a mother, a daughter - and all the things in between.
—— New York TimesWhat gives me fuel are other books - anything stylish and/or dirty. This year I loved reading K-Ming Chang's Bestiary.
—— Raven Leilani, author of LusterTo read K-Ming Chang is to see the world in fresh, surreal technicolor. Hers is a dizzyingly imaginative, sharp-witted voice queering migration, adolescence, and questions of family and belonging in totally new and unexpected ways. Both wild and lyrical, visionary and touching. Read her!
—— Sharlene Teo, author of PontiEpic and intimate at once, Bestiary brings myth to visceral life, showing what becomes of women and girls who carry tigers, birds, and fish within. K-Ming Chang's talent exposes what is hidden inside us. She makes magic on the page.
—— Julia Philips, author of the National Book Award finalist Disappearing Earth[A] vivid, fabulist debut . . . the prose is full of imagery. Chang's wild story of a family's tenuous grasp on belonging in the U.S. stands out with a deep commitment to exploring discomfort with the body and its transformations.
—— Publishers WeeklyFierce and funny, full of magic and grit, Bestiary is the most searching exploration of love and belonging I've read in a long time. Family, immigrant, queer, magic realist-none of these tags can quite capture the energy of this startling novel, which is all of those things, yet somehow more. K-Ming Chang has created something truly remarkable.
—— Tash Aw, author of We, the SurvivorsBestiary is crafted at the scale of epic poetry: origin stories that feel at once gravely older than their years, yet viscerally contemporary. Chang knows well that the life of a family-marriage, immigration, queer coming-of-age-can so often feel like a wild and tender myth, being spun and unspun by its members, again and again. These are fables I wish I'd had growing up.
—— Elaine Castillo, author of America Is Not the HeartTold by many voices, Bestiary is a queer, transnational fairy tale whose irresistible heroine is a Taiwanese American baby dyke. Written in a prose style as inventive and astonishing as the story it tells, to read it is to enter a world where the female body possesses enormous power, where the borders between generations are porous and shifting. A worthy heir to Maxine Hong Kingston, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, and Jamaica Kincaid, K-Ming Chang is a woman warrior for the 21st century-part oracle, part witness, all heart.
—— Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of HappinessThis book astounded me, unsettled me, and left me envious of K-Ming Chang's talent. Bestiary is a gleaming, meticulously crafted gem. I could spend all day marvelling at Chang's prose; these are sentences you want to climb inside, relish, and read again and again just for the pleasure of the language.
—— Jessica J. Lee, author of Turning and Two Trees Make a ForestK-Ming Chang is ferociously talented, one of my favorite new writers. She understands the language of desire and secrecy. Here is a book so wise; so gripping; so mythical and dangerous; so infused with surreal beauty, it burns to be read, and read again.
—— Justin Torres, author of We the AnimalsAn illuminating celebration of female artists and their often overlooked place in history
—— StylistPassionate, enthusiastic and witty... I wish I had had this book as a teenager
—— The iA touchpoint for a new generation who will go on to define the future of those exhibitions, collections, and auctions
—— Dazed DigitalThis eye-opening read is an overdue revisionist history of art - ignoring the pale, male canon to celebrate female artists who have been overlooked for centuries
—— Best non-fiction books of 2022 , iPaperThe early centuries are thin simply due to the paucity of surviving work by talented women painters but her story becomes fuller and more persuasive the closer it gets to today. Hessel is clear-sighted and impartial enough not to over-claim for her subjects but show that they are full of interest and every bit as worthy of attention as their male peers.
—— Michael Prodger , New StatesmenKaty Hessel's first book The Story of Art without Men is a necessary and urgent book. A truly empowering title, the volume celebrates the rise of women artists and recentres them within art, political and social history. Many of these artists have been presented at Serpentine and their visions are getting the visibility they deserve through the fantastic visuals and Katy's thorough research
—— Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, SerpentineWhen women are literally written out of history, Hessel conveys how radical, powerful and vulnerable their lives and art were - and still are. Through moments of rage and celebration, this story fundamentally centres creative freedom: the stifling of it, and the lengths endured to claim it.
—— Tiarney Miekus , The Sydney Morning HeraldThis passionate and personal telling of what has been an invisible history will bring revelation to anyone entering the world of art and its histories.
—— Iwona Blazwick, Director, The Whitechapel GalleryAlthough women have always made art, for far too long, art history has been told as the story of male achievement. Katy Hessel's The Story of Art without Men is a brilliantly readable and lively corrective. Outraged and celebratory, it's chock-full of female trail-blazers - from the Renaissance until the present day - who forged their way, despite facing the kind of hurdles that would stump most mortals
—— Jennifer Higgie, author of The Mirror and the PaletteCompiled with zip and wit, even the informed reader will learn something new on every page - we really cannot recommend it enough
—— The FenceA sumptuously illustrated history... at once broad in scope and meticulously researched
—— Breeze Barrington , TLSThis book has blown my mind. Really passionately recommend
—— India Knight , Sunday TimesAn extraordinary eye-opener, and very readable ... we badly need books like Hessel's
—— Evening StandardHessel's beautifully written 500-year survey is a welcome, necessary, addition to the bookshelves
—— Claire Armitstead , GuardianHighly readable and lavishly illustrated... a rich storehouse of groundbreaking female art
—— Liz Hodgkinson , The LadyAstonishing
—— Bella MackieThis book changes everything. As soon as you open it, it's like you've opened a box of lit fireworks - out soars great artist after great artist. Her retake on the canon has changed it forever
—— Ali Smith , ObserverHessel possesses that rare quality of a public intellectual, whereby she can distill vast amounts of knowledge and history into something accessible, relevant and joyful
—— Pandora SykesExtraordinary
—— L.A. TimesHonest, wholesome entertainment
—— Daily MailUtterly addictive
—— GlamourExquisite writing and a story enriched by the power of abiding love
—— USA TodayFull of romance, drama and snappy dialogue
—— PeopleEminently readable and richly imagined
—— Publisher's WeeklyHilarious and romantic. I couldn't put it down
—— Sarah Jessica Parker