Boon's Bookcase

Pretending to Dance

 by

 Diane Chamberlain
 Blog Tour

When the pretending ends, the lying begins . . . Molly Arnette is good at keeping secrets. As she and her husband try to adopt a baby, she worries that the truth she's kept hidden about her North Carolina childhood will rise to the surface and destroy not only her chance at adoption, but her marriage as well. Molly ran away from her family twenty years ago after a shocking event left her devastated and distrustful of those she loved. Now, as she tries to find a way to make peace with her past and embrace a healthy future, she discovers that even she doesn't know the truth of what happened in her family of pretenders.

Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain, the bestselling author of The Silent Sister, is a fascinating and deftly-woven novel, that reveals the devastating power of secrets.

Review

I have to hold my hands up here and say that I have never read a Diane Chamberlain book before, so when I was asked to review this one, I had to give it a go!

The story starts with Molly and Aiden, who are a married couple unable to have a child of their own, so are going down the "open adoption" route. Obviously they need to answer questions regarding their families and their past, so when a possible birth mother becomes available Molly goes into panic mode as she is hiding a secret about her family back in Morrison Ridge! Don't you just love a family with secrets!!

The book goes backwards and forwards from when Molly was 14 years old and entering puberty and lets us into the close relationship she has with her paraplegic father Graham, who is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. He is a therapist and deals with young adults practising the art of "pretend therapy".

Molly becomes friendly with a girl called Stacey and as you can imagine with any 14 year old girls, they become interested in boys! I thought the way the author made Molly very naive and a bit immature during this time was spot on, as we have all been like this and been smitten with a boy and thought we were being very grown up, when in fact, we were not!

There were some twists and turns throughout this book and I must admit, it did keep me on the edge of my seat (without being scary or frightening). Molly's family are not all that they seem and what happens when she is 14 affects her life as an adult. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be reading more from this author!

Thank you to Francesca at Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book for review.