And now all these years, later Melanie’s book popped on to my radar and I couldn’t resist her approach to this period in history, nor her focal character Marie, who is so resilient, fierce and determined, despite the myriad of hardships her life entails. However, at 17, I found it rather like wading through treacle and I confess, I didn’t make it to the halfway point of the book, before stopping. I was engaged enough to examine the book it was based on. The musical is truly fabulous, vivid, evocative with diverse storylines.

As Degas struggles to finish his sculpture and the police close in on Marie, she must decide where her loyalties lie and act to save herself, her family, and the Little DancerĪs a lifelong reader of historical fiction and historical biographies, I have become familiar with large pockets of history such as the Tudors, World War I & II as well as plenty more but when I read the details for Melanie’s book Little Dancer, my interest was immediate partly because decades ago, I attempted to read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables after I had seen the musical production for the second time (I have seen it three times more since!) and I was fascinated by the period as it wasn’t a time I had studied previously. With the fifth Impressionist Exhibition looming, a devastating family secret is uncovered which changes everything for both Marie and Degas. By night she’s plotting to overthrow the government and reinstate the Paris Commune, to keep a promise she made to her father, a leading communard who died in the street massacres of 1871.Īs Marie watches the troubling sculpture of herself come to life in Degas’ hands, she falls further into the intoxicating world of bohemian, Impressionist Paris, a world at odds with the socialist principles she has vowed to uphold. By day she’s a ‘little rat’ of the opera, contorting her starving body to entertain the bourgeoisie. Ballet dancer Marie van Goethem is chosen by the unknown artist Edgar Degas to model for his new sculpture: Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen Years. My review is based on my experience of the book and any thoughts expressed here are solely mine alone.

Thank you to Anne Cater, Random Things Tours & Unbound for my gifted copy and for having me on the blog tour for this book. Available: 21st July 2022 in Paperback & eBook

Misshapen chair face reveal