NB: This guest review is from Reader Tara Scott. If you want to read her previous guest reviews (and we highly recommend that you do), you can see them all here.

Tara reads a lot of lesbian romances. You can catch her regularly reviewing at The Lesbian Review and Lambda Literary and hear her talk about lesbian fiction (including romance) on her podcast Les Do Books. You can also hit her up for recommendations on Twitter (@taramdscott).

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I was never the kid who wanted to put on a tutu and ballet shoes (probably because I would have had to pull my nose out of a book). And even now, as much as I’m drawn to stories with professions I don’t often see in lesbian romance, ballet is never one of them. I don’t know that I would have picked up The Music and the Mirror except that a friend recommended it to me, and then another friend, and then… well. My only regret is that I didn’t start reading it the minute it was released because this book left me wrecked in the best possible way.

Anna Gale is finally achieving her dreams, walking in to her first day at the Metropolitan Ballet in New York. At 21, she’s a little older than some of the other dancers, but she has passion, drive, and talent on her side. Oh yeah, and a bucketload of hero worship, because she’ll be learning from none other than Victoria Ford, the former prima and “Queen of Ballet,” who’s now the company’s artistic director.

[Anna’s] barely gotten up on her toes for the first time, her muscles slow to wake, when the door flies open with a bang. She lets herself fall into a forward port de bras, clearing her head and getting her blood rushing in one.

It’s what distracts her from the moment she’s been desperately trying not to fixate on. Victoria Ford is a legend for a reason, and Anna’s been trying to concentrate on almost anything about her new job that will keep her from thinking about working with maybe the greatest ballerina in modern history.

“Good morning, mes danseurs,” Victoria greets them, striding to the front of the room and receiving the rapt attention of every person without so much as raising her voice.
Anna is holding her breath, scared that somehow she’ll shatter the moment she’s given up almost every morning, evening, and weekend for over these past few years.

Anna wants to keep her head down, learn, and take her place in the corps, but she ruins that plan when she makes the rookie mistake of not turning off her ringer. When her phone disrupts the class with the ironic and eyeroll-inducing Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Victoria gives Anna a challenge—flawlessly do the moves that she’d just outlined for the class or get the hell out forever.

Victoria is the frostiest of ice queens (that I’ve ever read, seriously), keeping everyone at bay with a sharp word or a fierce look. Despite being a ballet legend, she still has to prove herself; after running the company for four years, she’s never managed to stage a production that’s blown everyone out of the water. When Anna rises to Victoria’s challenge, however, her raw talent prompts Victoria to stake her career and reputation on the corn-fed ingenue, and she immediately rejigs the shows for the season, dropping an old reliable for a fresh spin on an obscure ballet that will launch her brand new principal. Of course, Anna isn’t ready just yet to be a principal, which means she’s in for many hours of grueling private lessons with Victoria in addition to group classes with the rest of the company. Victoria knows in her bones that the investment in Anna will be worth it—she has kind of talent that hasn’t been seen since Victoria Ford herself was on the stage, before she was taken out by an untimely knee injury more than a decade prior.

Working for Victoria isn’t easy, since she insists on calling Anna “Anya” for weeks and regularly tries to put her at odds with the other dancers, all in the name of making her better through adversity. And while Anna’s cheerful girl-next-door attitude and boundless enthusiasm are the perfect antidote to these methods, her tenacity and steel also shine through, with these attributes honing her talent much better than isolation or competitiveness ever would. Anna’s many facets also accomplish the impossible: slowly thawing Victoria, making her open to love in a way she’s never considered before, and even gentling her teaching methods so that she lets through smiles, nods, and the occasional line of praise that no other dancer has seen or heard.

There’s so much passion in The Music and the Mirror, and not just between Anna and Victoria (although that is definitely there). Ballet is in their blood, as well as everyone else’s around them. It’s why they get up in the morning and is their whole reason for being, making it all the more tragic when we understand the depth of Victoria’s loss and how she can be near it, but she can’t participate anymore. That passion for ballet is the heartbeat of the book and the foundation of the central romance, with their proximity and shared love of dance shifting Victoria and Anna’s relationship from the respectful dynamic of teacher and pupil to the deep love of true partners, with a side dish of some smoking hot chemistry. After Anna’s first performance as a principal, we can especially see how the two are tied:

“Oh,” Victoria moans softly when Anna’s hungry kisses leave her mouth and seek out new territory along her jawline and down her neck. “You were good tonight. I wasn’t going to stay, but I was curious.”

Anna grazes Victoria’s collarbone with her teeth before biting down for just a moment. It almost pulls a growl from Victoria’s throat. Feisty she wasn’t expecting.

“You’ve got it, haven’t you? That high. You want to be front and center, worshipped and adored.” Victoria closes her eyes and tries to summon the old feeling. It can’t compete with Anna’s hands palming her breasts through the material of her dress. Victoria responds by shifting her balance and hooking her leg over Anna’s hip to pull her closer.

“I want more,” Anna confesses.

For a moment, Victoria is distracted by all the arousing things that could mean. Then she sees the glint in Anna’s eye and understands.

“Soon. That stage will be yours, and you can show them what I see. It’s going to take a lot more work, Anna.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.”

Another aspect that’s especially great in this book is the way Lola Keeley writes female camaraderie. As much as Victoria tries to drive a wedge between Anna and some members of the company, like its current prima Delphine, all of that gives way to beautiful relationships for Anna with Delphine and Irina, the former prima is now in her last season thanks to the wear and tear of decades of dancing. The way Anna is accepted and taken in by these women makes it feels like a torch is being passed and it’s especially touching given the occasional insight we get into the nastier and more competitive side of elite ballet, like when Irina and Victoria reminisce about the good old days of deliberate injuries.

So, obviously I loved this book a whole lot, given how much I just raved about it. A couple of things are worth noting, however. The first is that it’s written in the third person present tense, which pulled me out of the story a lot the first time I read it. It didn’t faze me at all the second time, but if that’s something you hate too, just know that going in (but please do consider giving it a go anyway!).

Also, the structure doesn’t fit what I’m used to with most romances, which meant the reading experience was also a little disconcerting the first time through. At the risk of sharing a mild spoiler, very close to the end it looks like Anna and Victoria won’t have a HEA, and that stressed me right out because that doesn’t usually happen so late in a story. That said, I promise that it does have a HEA and while I may have preferred it to be fleshed out a little more, I was still very happy overall and thoroughly enjoyed my reread.

The Music and the Mirror is Lola Keeley’s first published book and damn is it a great one. It originally started out as an alternate universe Supergirl fanfic, although if I hadn’t been told that, I never would have known. (Side note: if you’re looking for great f/f fanfic, look up Fictorium, because she’s done a lot of amazing stories in the Supergirl, Once Upon a Time, and The Devil Wears Prada fandoms among many, many others). I was totally swept up in the lives of these dancers and I still find myself thinking about them in the weeks since finishing my second read through. I seriously hope Lola Keeley is working on her next book, because I can’t wait to see wait to see what she has in store for us next.