First Position: A brand-new spicy romance of forbidden love. A passionate and thrilling debut for 2023!

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There are two voices inside of me. One of them is the truth-teller. The one who sees things how they are and tells me, whether I like it or not, what I cannot admit to myself. The other is the liar. The one who acts on fear and anxiety. The one that tells me to stay scared because I will fail and who tells me not to take a risk because I’ll fall. They speak the same language but seem to have an almost imperceptibly different dialect. It makes it hard to tell which is speaking.” I can tell you have passion,” he said easily, clearly unaware of—or undeterred by—the turmoil of reactivity thirteen inches away from him. “I watched you for only a little while up there, not even alone, and I know you can be much better than you are. Even better, I should say.” An] addictive novel perfect for those who love their story with forbidden and steamy elements for a romance book' So edgy, so different, with a constant undercurrent of tension whether on the stage or in the bedroom... Raw and addictive. I loved it.' He gets up, and for a moment I feel a plunge of regret that I didn’t say anything interesting and instead sat here dumbly. But then he moves to the seat directly beside me.

First Position by Melanie Hamrick Read an excerpt from First Position by Melanie Hamrick

The pacing was slow and dragging, but the conclusion was well crafted. Nevertheless, I still had a hard time getting into the main story and connecting with any of the characters, which is why I decided to give a flat, uneventful, solid three stars. I wish I had enjoyed the book more than its alluring cover! All in all, I wasn't bored, but I wasn't intrigued either. Tiny Pretty Things (Netflix show) did something similar where the story became more about raw sex and human flesh than it did about ballet and what it is actually like to be a dancer in a major company. If it's what you're looking for, then you will have a good time, but all said and done, I wish there had been better characterization and a stronger emphasis on dance. I did enjoy the sapphic elements and wish that had been cultivated more, with the predatory male lead(s) left out. The bits where Sylvie is thinking about what it means to be a ballet dancer were what I truly enjoyed the most! It is both horrifying and awe-inspiring to learn about what dancers go through to achieve their dreams. Finally, I say, “I don’t think it’s fair for you to say anything when all you’ve seen is— I don’t even know how much you saw.” She did not tell you that you don’t have passion. Not at all. And neither did I, by the way.” He remains expressionless. “She said you’re in your head. This is not a damning insult.” She must see something more in you. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s a lot more to you than what I just saw.”

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Asked if she ever saw herself married, Melanie said: “I don’t know, I’m kind of like, a live-in-the-moment type of person, so who knows.” Heather couldn’t help but notice it was a very nice ass … even by ballet standards, sitting high and round above hamstrings so defined they looked like bridge cables under his tanned skin. Whoever this guy turned out to be, she’d never be able to forget that under those sweatpants he had a perfectly sculpted butt.” He looks like Robert Graham in his younger days, but with a better hairline. He has a mischievousness to him. A playfulness in his eyes.

Pleasure and pliés: the ballet bonkbusters handling dance’s

I push through the outer stage doors and begin my walk of shame up the grand, red velvet aisle of the empty theater.falling out in a hissed bravado before I can catch them. “I have to be in my head! If I’m not, then my form falls apart. Or it would. I have to be on the stage, in the music, and I have to be thinking in my head. Of course I do.” The heat from her body comes at me like an assault. Her energy is always like that … I feel like prey in the wild. When she’s around, I can feel her there. As if she’s waiting to pounce.”

First Position by Melanie Hamrick: 9780593638149

The dual narrative of Sylvie and Jocelyn was fantastic, with incredible pacing! I so badly wanted to know what happened between all the characters and how Sylvie’s fall from grace came to be. I had moments of both fiercely loving and hating both the FMC’s and wanted so badly to be proud of where they ended up. This is definitely more of Sylvie’s story but it is ultimately about their relationship and what happened to and between them. Let’s go, let’s go,” Diana says, with snapping fingers. The pianist begins the music and I hear the gentle shuffle of the dancers’ feet as they scramble to places behind Jocelyn. I really, really enjoyed this read and would recommend it to anyone looking for a tense (re)becoming of age story about a Ballerina recovering from a toxic love affair, while falling for her ballet companies new star. I listened to the audio book narrated by Savannah Peachwood and Summer Morton. The audiobook is fabulous and I can not recommend it enough.What I didn't expect, however, was the aforementioned overabundance of spicy sexual scenes that took up SO much of the book that I often had a hard time remembering what else in the plot was supposed to be relevant. Between this and Sylvie's constant drug abuse (often for no reason at all) I got pretty frustrated trying to stay invested in her journey. The dialogue also at times felt very clunky and fake... one such scene had the 'alluring' older man watching Sylvie and best frenemy Jocelyn and urging them: "Have fun, girls-do not forget to have fun! For god's sake, you're on drugs!" I’ve been keeping work separate,” she said. “For me personally, I prefer that because then it’s kind of fun. As a story about professional ballerinas, there is no one setting. Instead, the characters and readers with them find themselves in some of the most beautiful cities in the world. I loved this world tour and how it makes ballet seem that much more exotic.

First Position by Melanie Hamrick | Goodreads

This timeline also bops around to THREE different points in time for absolutely no reason, and also has narratives from Sylvie AND occasionally Jocelyn: so unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. The one upside to this is at least Jocelyn's sections had a bit more energy and punch, although she's just as unlikable as Sylvie, if not moreso. To give you a bit more insight into the bulk of her personality, here's how Jocelyn's mind works: "He pushes his hips into mine and I remember again why I'm having this fling. He's got no personality but he's an amazing dancer with a huge d***" (Yep, this is ACTUALLY Jocelyn's inner monologue...such as it is.)She was] exactly where she was supposed to be. The thought fuelled her muscles, buoyed her jumps and made her feet faster and more precise than usual, her body anticipating each note and clinging to every balance as if it was unbearable to let go … She had been broken and betrayed, but she’d found the courage to break free, and that’s what she was now: free, whole and more powerful than she’d ever known.” I can smell him. Is it cologne or just him? The notes are clean, maybe a little woodsy or smoky but not aggressively so. It could be soap and body heat. There's one really good scene here--it's when we see a ballerina injure herself mid-pirouette and the main narrator basically says internally "awful, but great. now the rest of us have a chance"--and I found that tension to be delicious, and I wanted more of THAT. But instead, for most of this book, we follow Sylvie (mostly, sometimes Jocelyn) while she trains, does drugs, goes to sex clubs, doesn't feed herself, etc, etc--and maybe this IS a realistic portrayal of ballet life, but it does not a novel make. This NEEDED a through-line, some sort of plot, and it just didn't have that.