Midwest Book Review
"The world of dancing and its demands--especially its emotional challenges--is realistically portrayed in Shadow Dancing, a fine novel for older teens and adults alike."
Barbara Kussow, Ohioana Quarterly
"The major strength of the novel is [Emma Kate's] portrayal as a sympathetic, credible heroine as she explores her feelings about the ballet and people with different values and backgrounds than her own. . . . Recommended for teen female readers, in particular."
Adam Tamashasky, Dayton Daily News
"Pinard uses words as a paintbrush to transform everyday life into warm vibrant colors and sensations. Her fiction often drifts into the melodic tones of song."
The Boox Review
"Pinard's introspective look at the power of childhood-instilled values and the depth of parental love is perfect for teen girls--and parents who may be doubting the worth of their side of the beautiful struggle."
Susan Wheeler, author of Creating the Story and True Stories
". . . a wonderful novel--a page-turner--about a girl who goes to New York to break into ballet. Pinard reveals this world, its fierce competitiveness, discipline, terror, heartbreak and joy, and she has created a richly-complex main character who confronts it. You'll love this girl and Pinard's writing--her insights and wisdom. This is a book for people of all ages, a classic."
Martha Barrett, author of Maggie's Way, God's Country, and Invisible Lives
"Nancy Pinard's first novel has created a world of youthful innocence and tough reality that will provide a compelling glimpse of the future for the teen reader and an insightful backward glance for the rest of us. The setting of New York ballet is fascinating; Pinard has obviously experienced what she has written. Bravo!"
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Nancy Pinard, Shadow Dancing
 Book
Description
Driven by the shadow of a misstep from her past, seventeen-year-old Emma Kate Thomas leaves her loving family, adagio partner, and ballerina status at a small Midwestern conservatory when a world-famous director entices her to New York. But her imagined waltz to center stage turns tango as soon as she arrives. Three male mentors vie to become her partner, each exacting his pound of flesh. Supported by a "family" of two elderly immigrant women and a Jewish university student, she finds answers to questions of her identity in the disequilibrium of big city life, including the face of her shadow, which until recalled, undermines her growth.
Shadow Dancing is a lyric coming-of-age story that will appeal to readers enchanted by this demanding art form. The first-person narration conveys what it feels like to carve space into new shapes with the body, to be borne weightless on a musical phrase, to borrow the anticipation of an audience to invigorate tired muscles and bleeding feet. The music and movement is conveyed in elegant prose and sensory images that accompany Emma Kate's glissade from childhood to maturity. From an award-winning and critically acclaimed writer comes a new novel about a young family in crisis --and the woman who turns their lives around.
Author's
Bio
The writing of Shadow Dancing required very little research. In her teens, the author danced with the Dayton Ballet Company and at the studio of a national company in New York.
After completing a BA in English at Gordon College and teaching language arts and literature to high school students, she studied fiction writing at the University of New Hampshire while raising two sons and assisting her husband in ministry to a New England congregation.
Shadow Dancing is Pinard's first novel. Her short stories have appeared in the Beloit Fiction Journal, Thema, and The Vincent Brothers Review. Her second novel, Butterfly Soup, is pending contract. In addition to work on her third novel, Ms. Pinard teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio where she again lives. Look for her website-to-be on ballet, opera and painting--www.fineartprimer.net.
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