The Unraveling
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A ballerina spirals into a world of lust and luxury in this new addictive novel by Melanie Hamrick, author of First Position.
Jocelyn Banks has always felt like an outsider in the ballet world. She was raised in rural Louisiana, taught to scrap and hustle for the life she wanted. And ever since Jocelyn found ballet, she has been able to take her life into her own hands. After years of success at the North American Ballet, she is now on a hiatus to enjoy life in London.
But in an instant, Jocelyn’s world is turned upside down and she’s forced find a way back into the ballet world. But the ballet scene in London is completely different from the one in America. It's not just talent and drive that will move you forward; if you don't secure a sponsor to pay your salary, you will go nowhere. Jocelyn manages to score a donor, which is crucial at the Royal National Ballet—but the hardest part is yet to come.
Jocelyn is unable to break through her emotions, afraid that if she does, she’ll be flooded with feelings she can’t afford to have. But something about her sponsor, the charismatic Alastair Cavendish, sets a fire in her. What she feels when she’s with him is raw and real. If she goes down this precarious path, she knows she’s doomed to fall into an intoxicating spiral of self-sabotage. But the lust and magnetizing lure of power and prestige keep clawing at her, ultimately forcing her to choose between desire and duty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Choreographer Hamrick follows up First Position with another seductive tale of the ballet world's glamour and darkness. Jocelyn Banks's mother, Brandy, failed in her own quest to become a ballerina. While raising Jocelyn in rural Louisiana, she does everything she can to make Jocelyn a star—up to and including forcing her to purge certain foods, beginning when she's 14. After graduating from high school, Jocelyn joins the North American Ballet in New York City. At 24, she quits in order to follow her artist boyfriend, Jordan Morales, to London. By this point, she's long estranged from Brandy, and after learning Brandy has been seriously injured in a car accident, she begins picking fights with Jordan instead of going home to visit her mother. After attending a London ballet performance, Jocelyn resumes her ballet practice and falls under the sway of a charismatic but cruel dancer. As the novel reaches its crisis point, Jocelyn takes a big risk that might end her career. Hamrick satisfies with her twisty drama, where bad actors get their just desserts, and she delivers fine character work, as in her portrayal of Jocelyn's reckoning with the sacrifices Brandy made for her. Readers will be swept off their feet.
