Adrienne Sharp First Love

First Love

Adrienne Sharp

Riverhead, Jul 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 1573223107

They met as teens and fell in and remain in love. Adam LaSalle and Sandra Ellis are talented ballet dancers, whose careers are just taking off with both looking like future superstars. Sandra dances for George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet while Adam performs with the rival American Ballet Theatre troupe.

In the early 1980s, the ailing master choreographer Balanchine thinks he has found his muse to star as Sleeping Beauty when he sees Sandra. He knows she is his last chance to put on the fairy tale production he has dreamed of performing for what seems eternity. However, Balanchine expects Sandra to obey everything he demands from her; which includes putting her personal life on hold. Adam has other plans for his beloved to dance on stage and off together. Sandra must choose which love takes precedence knowing that whoever she rejects will be crushed.

FIRST LOVE is a terrific what if alternate recent history tale that builds around the dream of the late legendary George Balanchine wanting to put on a special production of Sleeping Beauty, but in real life never found his star "muse". The storyline focuses on Sandra whose loves clash as she wants to be all she can be in ballet, but also desires to be with her beloved Adam. The three men in her life (which includes her father) pull her in an opposite vortex as if she is the center of a triangle. Readers will appreciate this fabulous ballet character study starring a terrific cast and paying homage to a great master.

Harriet Klausner