1. The Dancing Master
    Julie Klassen
    Bethany House / 2013 / Trade Paperback
    Our Price$18.00 Retail Price$20.00 Save 10% ($2.00)
    4.2 out of 5 stars for The Dancing Master. View reviews of this product. 64 Reviews
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    Stock No: WW210709
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  1. Iola
    New Zealand
    Age: 45-54
    Gender: female
    3 Stars Out Of 5
    Not Julie Klassen's best
    January 16, 2014
    Iola
    New Zealand
    Age: 45-54
    Gender: female
    Quality: 3
    Value: 3
    Meets Expectations: 1
    A city boy with a passion for dance moves with his mother to a small country town with a powerful moral leader who banned dancing following the tragic death of a young man many years ago. The leader has a rebellious daughter who seeks out the company of inappropriate young men, including the new boy in town, who wants to reintroduce the townsfolk to dance.

    Sound familiar? Yes, it's the plot of Footloose, the 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon. It's also the plot of The Dancing Master.

    Miss Julia Midwinter lives in Buckleigh Manor, Bedworth, Devon, the only child of Lady Amelia Midwinter, the local matriarch who has forbidden dancing in the village since the death of her beloved brother. Alec Valcourt has moved to the small village of Beaworthy with his sister and widowed mother, hoping to gain employment as a dancing master and fencing instructor.

    Parts of The Dancing Master were very good. Klassen's writing was, as always, excellent, with a use of language and evidence of extensive research. I appreciated the attention to detail. The passages regarding the Bryanites were especially interesting, because it provided a unique insight into another form of worship–the Bryanites were an offshoot of the Wesleyan who worshipped God through song and (ironically) dance. This was an interesting piece of research that could have been developed into a fascinating subplot, but it was almost totally ignored.

    Klassen seems to be following the trend of having a greater proportion of the story from the male point of view (as Dee Henderson CID with Unspoken), and I'm still in two minds about the effectiveness of this. It feels as through the story turned from focussing on Julia, to focusing on Alec (and the Allen and Thorne families), which meant we didn't get to see what Julia was thinking. The result is the romance wasn't convincing.

    I could see why Julia was attracted to Alec: he personified everything her mother despised, the typical good girl/bad boy pairing (except Alec isn't actually a bad boy, and her mother didn't actually despise him–it was just a reaction to a situation she faced in her youth). I couldn't see what attracted Alec to Julia, because she came across as spoiled and self-centred. Yes, I could see that she was that way because her father never loved here (leading into the spiritual application of our heavenly Father loving us despite the actions of our earthly parents, another subplot that would have benefited from more attention).

    I had high expectations for The Dancing Master, because I've read and enjoyed several of Julie Klassen's earlier novels. I was expecting to be wowed, in the way I was when I first read The Maid of Milkweed Manor. But I wasn't. The subplots were more interesting than the main plot, the minor characters (the Allens, the Bryanites and Mr Desmond) were more interesting than the relationship between Alec and Julia and the conflict between Julia and her mother, and there wasn't enough development in the main characters. And there was no spiritual development in either of the main characters, yet this should be a central feature of a Christian novel.

    The Dancing Master was missing that originality of plot and character demonstrated in her earlier novels. I found it slow to read and difficult to finish. I hope her next novel returns to the combination of strong characters and excellent writing that made her earlier novels so good.

    Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
  2. Casey
    Oregon
    3 Stars Out Of 5
    Regency Fiction
    January 8, 2014
    Casey
    Oregon
    Quality: 3
    Value: 3
    Meets Expectations: 3
    Regency England seems to be the place to travel in today's Christian fiction circles and there certainly seems to be plenty happening within the characters and their circumstances especially when it comes to living within their expected-and respectable-boundaries.

    I will admit that Alec has not been my favorite hero to read, but-yes, I'm including a but-he grew and changed as the story progressed and I liked him a bit better. He has a bit of a pretentious air about him when the book starts, though he is reinventing himself in humble beginnings.

    Julia is a challenging character as well. Strong willed, she does manipulate her way around her mother's affections and their strained relationship make for some strained scenes.

    It's not a smooth ride for sure, though the thought of "regency fiction" does lend itself to seeming that way. You get a peek into a time period that really, had all the same problems we do, just dressed a bit differently.

    The ending was satisfying and the characters changed from their beginning counterparts. While not my favorite of titles that I've finished so far this year, I have absolutely no doubt that avid fans of Regency England will fall in love with Alec and Julia's story and the stands they learn to take.

    This review is my honest opinion. Thanks to the publishers through Litfuse for my copy to review.
  3. MaureenT
    Syracuse NY
    Gender: female
    3 Stars Out Of 5
    A Town Without Dancing
    January 8, 2014
    MaureenT
    Syracuse NY
    Gender: female
    Quality: 4
    Value: 4
    Meets Expectations: 2
    I have very mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed the setting, and could understand the pain that came to quite a few, in this story, on being betrayed. There is a lot of lying and deceit.

    Julia, one of the main characters, is a flirt, and very spoiled. She thinks mainly of her self, and doesn't seem to care about what happens to others. Another main male character, Alec, is the Dance Master Saber Instructor. I cringed when he was beaten up, I thought surely some of his fast on his feet training, would happen. I did like that he didn't tell what had happened to his father, in order to defend himself.

    I also felt rather sorry for Julia, her cold father, and rather distant Mother. Maybe that is the reason she acts so unlikeable. I did like John Desmond, and felt sorry for the burden that he carried, all because of what someone said, and caused so much heartache.

    You will be in for some big surprises and will be guessing almost to the end.

    I received this book through Litfuse Publicity Book Tours, and the Publisher Bethany House, and was not required to give a positive review.
  4. crtnybc
    British Columbia, Canada
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: female
    2 Stars Out Of 5
    most disappointing :(
    January 12, 2014
    crtnybc
    British Columbia, Canada
    Age: 35-44
    Gender: female
    Quality: 2
    Value: 2
    Meets Expectations: 2
    Oh dear.

    So far I have loved every Julie Klassen book I've read, but was a definite exception. I just couldn't get into it and it was work to get through it. The plot is slow moving and most of the 'unexpected twists and turns' were most definitely expectable, if that's a word.

    Alec was a difficult hero to get excited about. He's a shallow self centered gentleman dandy. I kept expecting this to change, but it never did to my liking. Julia is not much better, and quite frankly, I don't think I would have liked either one of them, even by the end of the book.

    No one in the village is allowed to dance and why is kept a big secret (one of many secrets that are slowly revealed) until quite a ways into the book and when I finally found out why I felt it wasn't a big enough reason for such a huge edict. I felt like that with a lot of the book. Al lot of drama, for not enough reason.

    I don't mind when a book switches back and forth between character points of view, but since I already found this book difficult at best it just served to further annoy me.

    I did appreciate the obvious research the author did and the new tidbits I learned about the time period but in my opinion that was not enough reason to read this particular book. The rest of her books are wonderful. I highly recommend them all. Just not this one.

    This book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Displaying items 61-64 of 64
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