A Dance of Lies

This started off really strongly! As a dancer, I was very intrigued to see a romantasy story that centered a lot around dance. I was also pleased to see a disability rep in here too. However, as the story went on, there was a couple of things that ended up bringing the rating down.

I enjoyed our main characters overall. Vas was a determined girl on a mission, which I appreciated. It is important to have a character with motives, and she did. However, a big part of her personality and character was her disability, which I think is great! But, the disability rep was a little misguided since her pain never completely stopped her from doing anything. Vas would just push through it, even when it hurt her. While I think there could be an upside to that and a positive twist, it seemed that she could make her disability pretty much go away whenever she wanted, as she continued to do complete insanely complicated dances that involved being thrown and jumping and falling. That seems to disregard the whole point of having a disabled main character. For someone to be completely unable to walk to performance-ready in 5 weeks is just not accurate.

The world-building was also very confusing. For something with no magic, for the most part, I thought this would be simpler to understand, but no. There were so many characters, families, countries, and connections that I did not keep any of them straight. And then when we added in the fates and the prophecy, I was lost. I understood the story enough to get by, but all of those intricacies that I adore in fantasy were not picked up on here.

I did like the romance for the most part here, and there were a couple of moments that gave me little butterflies. But, it was a little confusing to know which man we were supposed to root for and who she was going after because every guy in this narrative wanted her. I'm not a big fan of love triangles, but when there is one, I would appreciate a clear winner. The everyone loves me trope is not one I enjoy. Not only is it frustrating when everyone falls at Vas's feet, but it is also frustrating when she continues to break the rules and get away with things she should not have over and over again.

Also, the aspect of her father did not make sense to me. Yes, she ran away when she was 13 and she was a few years older, but there is no way and in no world that her father would not have recognized her. She just put on makeup and different clothes and thought that would be enough? Also, I feel as though as a general's daughter she would have had a much different upbringing and people would have known who she was more. The anonymity she claimed to have didn't make a ton of sense either.

The worst offender for me was probably the last 50 pages of the book. I was really close to giving this a 4-star and was pretty set on it being that, but the way this ended was NOT for for me. It completely cheapened the rest of the book and seemed like a cop-out. The way magic was inserted at the last possible moment was too convenient when nothing was mentioned in the book.

I will say this was pretty fast-paced overall and I did fly through it. I was intrigued the entire time and constantly wanted to know what was happening. The writing was very consumable. But, I was not aware that this was a series. I just wanted a standalone, but there is clearly a second and potentially more to this.

For a debut, there was a lot of good in this, and a great place to start. I think the writing was good and the story was told well. I just think that some of the choices plot-wise were not the best direction-wise nor made a ton of sense.

3/5 stars.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.