Reverence

This book surpassed the high expectations I had. The whole setting with ballet dancers, 1980’s and Paris makes the whole story so enticing. For me living in Europe close to the Russian border and remembering the fear we had for the Soviet Union during that time and what we also feel now vs. Russia after they invaded Ukraine it made it all so much more real. The mention of the AIDS pandemic also reminded me of all the great persons we lost to that disease. Clear that the author has this time in history close to her heart. On top of the fantastic story settings, I can just gush over the language, the romance, the angst and the amazing main and side characters. I will remember and think about this story for a very long time. It is not just a romance but so much more moving me on such a deep level. Thank you, Milena McKay, for giving me this fantastic read.

I love that a book punches me in the sternum, with enough force to break into my ribcage, grab my heart, squeeze it with enough force to leave me breathless, and then releases and withdraws, and my blood pumps again, and I can breathe and marvel at the whole epic experience. I just love it, like the good lover of drama and angst that I am. I tried very hard to stay away from reviews of this book. Tried very hard to get into it with a relatively open mind. And I did, to some extent. But from the little I’d heard I suspected it’d be gut wrenching. Suspecting did not subtract from the sheer agony and subsequent catharsis of what transpires in this perfectly gorgeous story. Ballet, so delicate and so airy and so grandiosely gorgeous, is a perfect conduit to showcase the drama that hides behind every shiny surface. Ballet is not the point to me, albeit so beautiful and ethereal. Ballet is a means to an end, to showcase that behind every shiny beautiful surface may lay a story that could be a lot darker and a lot more daunting than the perfect grand jete we all see on the surface. Ballet seems like a conduit to show a seriously wide range of complicated human emotions, and behaviors. Fear and trust, fundamentally. And love. But fear. Trauma. Survival. Doing what it takes to survive and overcome. And love to understand these things, these utterly unstoppable emotions that drive one to do what they do. It takes love to overcome all pain inflicted in the road to freedom. These…

It has taken me two weeks to write this review. A review I’m writing for the author who is number one in my top five authors in this genre. I’ve read the book three times since getting it and still I couldn’t critique it. It’s different than what I’m used to from her, that’s the first thing, it’s heavy. Not that she writes light to begin with, but this is weighty, morose even. It’s gripping, seductively eloquent, her voice is still there, but its intonation is different. It’s darker than what she’s written, brutally painful in a tangible way. It’s deeply personal, I can feel that off the page. I wept at all that was lost and how brutally it was taken. Evil, is personified in this romance and then it hits me, this isn’t a romance at all really. It’s unexpected, but that’s the thing about expectations, they can mask truth unwittingly. The burden of the creative is to live outside even a successful mold because it is the only way to keep creating. Yet, the consumer complacent in our consumption, we want what we had, what we’re used to, which can be stifling. Our adoration can suffocate creativity. Because she is number one in my top five, an honest review is deserved. This isn’t the book I was expecting or perhaps even wanted. I struggled with the stark pain of it, the pain that remained even at reconciliation. There was no way to tie it up neatly because this isn’t a romance, not to me anyway. It is art though. Deeply personal and wrenching in its telling. The voice, feel, the…

Milena McKay has already made a name for herself as one of the queens of ice queens. She gives readers multi-dimensional characters with enough substance to them that you cheer for them while you're also begging for them to grow and change and find their way to happiness. Reverence is McKay's sixth full-length novel and she's dropped us into Paris in the 1980s at the Palais Garnier and a ballet company in turmoil led by the incomparable Juliette Lucian-Sorel. When the Soviet Bolshoi ballet comes to town, bringing its own brightest star, Katarina Vyatka, to the Palais, the reader is drawn into Cold War intrigue, the drama of high-stakes professional dance and yes, the push-pull of an attraction that desperately wants to grow into something more. I don't know a thing about ballet aside from the skill and sheer athletic ability of its dancers. I found the setting of the ballet, the way McKay is able to show that dancers with this level of talent aren't just "doing the thing" but embodying their art to be incredibly compelling. Each of the main and secondary characters have their own relationship with ballet, with each other, and finally with the art they create together. The ballet isn't simply the setting here, but a character in its own right. If you've read McKay's other books, you know that you'll be dealing with characters that are more than they appear on the surface and you have to wait as the author spins her tale giving you just a bit more chapter by chapter to…

Initially I wasn't going to read this book but I love how the author writes, so I read. WOW! This was a beautiful love story. I laughed out loud, I cried, the emotions were a roller coaster. I was exhausted emotionally and I won't hesitate to read anything written by Milena McKay. I recommend this book whole heartedly.