Take the Lead by Alexis Daria
Dance Off #1
Contemporary Romance
October 3, 2017
Swerve

Reviewed by Kini

This is basically a romance novel set in a fictional version of Dancing with the Stars. I watch the show with some regularity, so I was pretty interested in this book. It also features a Latinx heroine by a Latinx author, doubling my interest.

Gina is a pro dancer on “The Dance Off” and really wants a strong partner to help her to the championship and ultimately win the show. She has some strict standards and refuses to allow the producers to make her play the over-sexed Latina character. Because of that, she keeps it strictly professional with all of her co-workers, the pros and celebrities on the show.

Stone is part of a family that has their own reality TV show about living off the land in Alaska. He is familiar with the ways of being on a reality show and begrudgingly agrees to do The Dance Off because his family needs the money. He has an incredibly complicated relationship with the show his family is on and the reasons for they are on it.

At first, Gina is concerned about Stone’s level of commitment to the show. Once she calls him on it, he realizes how important it is to her and he buckles down and give it his all. One thing I learned about was how hard it is for female pros on the dance show because in dancing the man needs to lead and that isn’t always easy to do, but obviously Stone does learn how to take the lead.

Gina and Stone have chemistry from the first moment they meet. It was well written on the page and it had me rooting for this couple. It was also pretty darn sexy. Even though this quote is long, I felt like it captured their chemistry, intensity, and sexiness.

He started fucking her again. From this angle, he went so deep, and her pussy was so sensitive, he wrung a breathy cry from her with each thrust. Her body no longer felt like her own. It was his, and hers, just as his body was now his and hers. She was a mass of pure sensation, and she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. His thrusts took on a shorter, harder rhythm. He slammed into her, the fingers of one hand digging into her hip while the other roughly caressed her ass. “God, Gina,” he ground out. “I’m— fuck. You’re— christ, damn it. I’m coming.” In the back of her mind, she wanted to know what he was going to say. But her own body was lighting up, the intense drive of his cock pushing her over the edge again. Time enough for talk later. “Me, too.” The words burst out of her on a gasp. “Don’t stop!” He growled. “Never.” His hips slammed, his cock surged. Her orgasm ripped through her. Her limbs shook. Her pussy spasmed. She pressed her face into the mattress and cried out as it all became too much.

I thought the book balanced the love story of Gina and Stone and all the other things happening well. It was not bogged down by them on the show, although it is a big part, but it isn’t the only thing. They are shown doing other things and that was nice. I don’t like it when the couple lives in a bubble and we only see one thing. No book is perfect and the thing that I didn’t like about this book was the producer Donna, she was the absolute worst and her only purpose was to incite conflict.

While I didn’t love this as much as many other people, I still really enjoyed it. There were some secondary characters that I hope to see in later books. I found it well written as well as incredibly sexy. I already have the next book in the series and I look forward to reading it as well as other stories by this author.

Grade: B+

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