Ballroom Dance Anyone?

Life in Littleton is good.  I have the first draft of my second book done, had a successful writer’s workshop last Saturday, and am ready for a short break–with ballroom dance.

Colorado Star Ball

Oh, the glitter and shine!

You heard me right.  I love to ballroom dance.  I love the music, the movement, the people and the bigness of it all.  Ballroom dance is also a great exercise for people of all ages and skill sets.  I like that “all skill sets” part because I’m not normally what you’d call dance “gifted.” Not like my friend, Uni, who has moves you wouldn’t believe, and the attitude to go with them.

But I’ll be dancing with Uni and nine other friends in a Ladies Performance routine Saturday afternoon.  Good luck to Melissa, Sandy, Barb, Debbie, Benedetta, Beth, Carol, and Stephanie.  Thank you, Lindsey, for another great routine.  And Diane in Houston, we’ll be missing you!

I’m not gifted in dance like my teachers at Colorado DanceSport. They dance for about 12 hours a day, six days a week.  These young people start their routines by working out at a gym. Then they have staff meetings, warm-ups, and stretches.  By the time the first students enter the dance studio, my teachers have already put in a few hours of uncompensated time to improve their physical well-being and professional skill sets.  When other professional dancers come into town, my teachers take lessons individually as well as with the students who invest in extra coaching.  This is an impressive group of people who maintain up-to-date dance moves, make dance fun, and help you keep in shape at the same time.

I’m not gifted either, like my husband, who takes lessons five days a week and goes to several competitions each year.  Did I mention that ballroom dance has a lot of opportunity to make the most of your vacation time?

BUT…

I am very excited to be heading off to the one competition I enjoy each year–Colorado Star Ball.  This event, held in Westminster, Colorado (smack in between Boulder and Denver), is amazing, with dancers from all over the world and of every level of skill.  Do you know Jonathon Roberts and Anna Treybunskaya (hint: think Dancing With The Stars)?  Yep. They’ll be at Star Ball this year.

And, rumor has it that TLC will be filming for a new television show at the event.

Ballroom Dance Supplies

The stuff of dreams

But more important than all that is the DAZZLE!  You should see the dresses, the make-up, the hairdos, the spray-on suntans!  Everything is over-the-top and breath-taking.  For a few days you get to play dress-up to your heart’s content in Swarovski crystals, feathers and every color combo to catch the eye. Who cares if you know the steps?  “Winners” only get stickers, or glasses, sometimes a trophy you could buy for yourself at any trophy shop.  No, winning isn’t determined by the things you get at one of these events.

Winning is hearing your friends shout out your name or dance number in wild abandon as the music swirls around you.  Winning is taking yourself out of your comfort zone and flying across the floor with all of your heart–remembering to keep the shoulders down and the head up.  Winning is the smile that forms somewhere deep inside you and doesn’t stop  the entire length of the competition.  Winning is watching the pros inspire awe and admiration throughout the Saturday evening competition.  They dance so close you could reach out and touch them, but you don’t.  But sometimes, because they’re pros, they see you and wink at you with a smile that says “come join the fun.” And, of course, you get all mushy inside and promise yourself to practice harder in the year ahead.

Ballroom dance.  It’s another world.  But it’s well worth exploring.

No time or energy for this exercise?  No problem!  Check out Ella Barrick’s Ballroom Dance Mysteries.  Great fun with a little more blood than you’d usually find at a dance studio–no matter how “cutthroat” the competition.  I’ll be bringing my copy of Dead Man Waltzing with me to Westminster this weekend.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.  Please cross your fingers for my success with  terrific dance partners–Mitch and Jay– at Colorado Star Ball.

It’s A Mystery: Quickstep to Murder

Meet the Author

I met Laura DiSilverio, aka Ella Barrick, at the Left Coast Crime conference in March. She had been so impressive on the panel discussions that I thought she would be too busy to talk with a total stranger for more than a second. But I was wrong.  We met in the hall between sessions and I had the feeling no one else mattered to her during the time we chatted.

Laura lives in Colorado and writes four mystery series. Four!

  • Ballroom Dance Mysteries
  • Charlie Swift Mysteries
  • Mall Cop Mysteries
  • Southern Beauty Shop Mysteries

My goodness, this person is organized and impressive.  I asked her about her mystery series on ballroom dancing because I enjoy dancing with Colorado DanceSport so much.  Perhaps she dances?

She smiled and said no, but yes, she does write under the name Ella Barrick with a ballroom dance series that has dance instructor Stacy Graysin double as an amateur sleuth.  I asked where I could buy a copy, and Laura generously said she’d send me a couple of these books, as they weren’t carried in the conference bookstore.

I never thought this would happen.  If you’ve ever been at a trade show or conference, you know that cards and contact information are lost more than found at the end, and all the best intentions of following up are forgotten in the shuffle of getting back to work when the event is over.

Imagine my delight then, when a few days after the conference, I received a bulky envelope from Laura and inside was not one, but two novels!  I dove right in to the first, Quickstep to Murder.

Quickstep to Murder.phpQuickstep to Murder

Stacy Graysin, co-owner of Graysin Motion dance studio is furious with her ex-fiance and other half of the Graysin Motion ownership team.  Not only did Rafe Acosta sleep with another dancer, but now the slime ball wants to add hip-hop and children’s lessons to the studio curriculum. Horrors! Stacy is angry enough to declare that these changes will occur over her dead body.  Only it is Rafe who is found with his skull mashed in on the studio dance floor, and the police are convinced that Stacy is the prime suspect in the case.

Soon Rafe’s half-brother from Argentina shows up and things get even more complicated.  Apparently, Rafe had changed his will in the weeks before his death, and Stacy no longer inherits his half of the studio.  But Octavio (Tav) Acosta, Rafe’s half-brother and inheritor has no interest in ballroom dance and so he will be selling his portion of the studio, with or without Stacy’s interest in mind.

Now, you should know that this story takes place in Washington D.C. where intrigue and rumor abounds, so you can only imagine the tangles that Stacy finds herself snared in going forward.

If you’re a mystery lover, this is a story to go for, definitely.

Writing Plus Points

What I liked about this novel was the way Ella kept the murder forefront of the story, even while delving into the world of ballroom dance.  I was also impressed with the accuracy with which she portrayed that world–dress costs and materials, dance steps, major competitions, and how studios tend to be funded, how dancers behave.

Lastly, Ella took her time as a writer, in describing the murder scene itself.  This is something a lot of newer writers miss.  When the tension of the action rises, you add in the visceral experience of the point-of-view character, and the reader jumps deeply into the story.  New writers will add a lot of details, but miss that physical reaction the POV character experiences, and will bog down the story as a result.  Ella balanced between detail and story progress very well.

Writing Challenges

I think the story worked very well for me as a reader.  Stacy’s main physical experience of her world seemed to be in the scents she experienced, which drew me out of the story occasionally, but not enough to detract from the plot itself.

In short, you go and enjoy Quickstep to Murder.  I’m going to dive into Dead Man Waltzing. Have a fun reading day.

Title: Quickstep to Murder
Author: Ella Barrick
Publisher: Obsidian Mysteries (an imprint of Penguin Books)