Sara Holliday

I received an advance PDF copy of A Thousand Dances by Sara Holliday. My review is not influenced by the receipt of the free copy.

Sara Holliday offers readers more information about her work at this site: https://sarahollidaybooks.com/2018/03/18/coming-fall-2018-a-thousand-dances/. Here is another link of interest: rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://spinnery.sarahollidaybooks.com/2018/10/08/lets-have-a-party/.

A Thousand Dances takes readers on a tour of 1963 music with a group of teenagers, friends and foes. The teens are all music fans and quite knowledgeable about the music of the day. Narrator Nicky Spinnery, the sexton’s son, is particularly keen on the latest music. His father, the Brig, who survived being a Far East Prisoner of War and lost a leg as well, is quite a singer himself. Nicky complains about his father constantly breaking into song, but he secretly enjoys his father’s singing; he simply would not let his father know that.

Nicky and his friends Eddie, Roy, Suzy, and Luce frequent the Cherrystone, a local nightclub, where all the latest music is played. The friends love discussing who is the best singer and who is “derivative.” They argue about the merits of the groups, the songs, and individual singers. All is well until one evening, the friends discover the body of a young, unidentified man in the bathroom at Cherrystone. His throat has been cut.

Immediately, Nicky calls the police and everyone awaits the arrival of the detectives. No one knows the young man and he has no identification on him, not even a label in his clothing. On the spot, the police rule the death a suicide. Everyone must remain at the club to be questioned by the police.

The teens are troubled by the death, of course, even though they do not know the dead boy. Luce’s father is a constable, so they can keep up with the investigation through him. Of course, Nicky’s group must have a foil: Denys Brown, formerly Dennis. Denys is “the local Face…. The Lambretta Trendsetter.”

Clearly, someone must know something about the boy’s death. The police soon discover the young man has not committed suicide. Nicky and Luce try to find out who he is and why he turns up at Cherrystone. They continue with their love of music, but an incident late one night at Cherrystone creates a disturbance and gets Nicky barred from the nightclub.

Readers also learn more about Nicky’s homelife. Nicky’s mother has left the home and is living with another man. At first, she took Nicky with her, but he quickly returns to his father’s home to live with him. He sees his mother occasionally. Nicky and Luce live next door to one another in apartments. They share their love of music and their desire to find out about the dead young man.

Read A Thousand Dances to find a recreation of the 1960s music scene in Britain. The singers and songs will be familiar including a “chance encounter [that] might lead to drinks with Mick and Keith.”

At the end, readers discover a fan club needs a hand. Nicky has no idea whose fan club until he sees NEMS on the top of a letter. He says, “Every music fan knew NEMS stood for North End Music Stores. The North End, that is, of Liverpool.” Nicky would be working on the Beatles’ fan club. What’s not to like about that?
I received an advance PDF copy of A Thousand Dances by Sara Holliday. My review is not influenced by the receipt of the free copy.

Sara Holliday offers readers more information about her work at this site: https://sarahollidaybooks.com/2018/03/18/coming-fall-2018-a-thousand-dances/. Here is another link of interest: https://spinnery.sarahollidaybooks.com/2018/10/08/lets-have-a-party/.

A Thousand Dances takes readers on a tour of 1963 music with a group of teenagers, friends and foes. The teens are all music fans and quite knowledgeable about the music of the day. Narrator Nicky Spinnery, the sexton’s son, is particularly keen on the latest music. His father, the Brig, who survived being a Far East Prisoner of War and lost a leg as well, is quite a singer himself. Nicky complains about his father constantly breaking into song, but he secretly enjoys his father’s singing; he simply would not let his father know that.

Nicky and his friends Eddie, Roy, Suzy, and Luce frequent the Cherrystone, a local nightclub, where all the latest music is played. The friends love discussing who is the best singer and who is “derivative.” They argue about the merits of the groups, the songs, and individual singers. All is well until one evening, the friends discover the body of a young, unidentified man in the bathroom at Cherrystone. His throat has been cut.

Immediately, Nicky calls the police and everyone awaits the arrival of the detectives. No one knows the young man and he has no identification on him, not even a label in his clothing. On the spot, the police rule the death a suicide. Everyone must remain at the club to be questioned by the police.

The teens are troubled by the death, of course, even though they do not know the dead boy. Luce’s father is a constable, so they can keep up with the investigation through him. Of course, Nicky’s group must have a foil: Denys Brown, formerly Dennis. Denys is “the local Face…. The Lambretta Trendsetter.”

Clearly, someone must know something about the boy’s death. The police soon discover the young man has not committed suicide. Nicky and Luce try to find out who he is and why he turns up at Cherrystone. They continue with their love of music, but an incident late one night at Cherrystone creates a disturbance and gets Nicky barred from the nightclub.

Readers also learn more about Nicky’s homelife. Nicky’s mother has left the home and is living with another man. At first, she took Nicky with her, but he quickly returns to his father’s home to live with him. He sees his mother occasionally. Nicky and Luce live next door to one another in apartments. They share their love of music and their desire to find out about the dead young man.

Read A Thousand Dances to find a recreation of the 1960s music scene in Britain. The singers and songs will be familiar including a “chance encounter [that] might lead to drinks with Mick and Keith.”

At the end, readers discover a fan club needs a hand. Nicky has no idea whose fan club until he sees NEMS on the top of a letter. He says, “Every music fan knew NEMS stood for North End Music Stores. The North End, that is, of Liverpool.” Nicky would be working on the Beatles’ fan club. What’s not to like about that?… (mehr)

I have to open this by noting that I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this.

This was a really fun and enthralling story! I went in not very sure what to expect--the "musical fiction" kind of threw me for a loop, and in the opening pages I was absolutely this was going to be a slog, as I'm not a person who cares very much about the kinds of musical fandom that Nick and his friends do, but rapidly I got sucked into the mystery plot, and I really have to say Holliday did an amazing job of making like deeply relatable and realistic teen characters. Nicky especially was just a masterclass in that tension of being almost-an-adult, and not having full control over like your emotions and reactions, but still fully facing the consequences of that. All of the characters, though, were really lively and lovely. And I bet if you like and care about like the 60s British pop music scene, you'd be way more clued in than I was about all of that stuff.

SPOILER: Will say there's some period-based homophobia that ends up lingering, but I was able to continue reading and didn't find it particularly triggering, more just annoying… (mehr)