Review: 'The Summer We Danced' by Fiona Harper (2016)

Shall we dance?
After a humiliating divorce and watching her former rock star husband leave her for a model live on reality TV, Pippa is determined to disappear. So she returns to the small Kent village where she grew up to make a fresh start.
Little did she know that would mean saving her beloved childhood dance school or falling for her old school crush Tom too!
At the start of 2014 I got the chance to read and review Fiona Harper’s ‘Make My Wish Come True’, which was a great read and also my introduction to Fiona’s writing (click here to read my review). Since then I’ve been wanting to read more of her work and I finally got the chance when I was lucky enough to receive a review copy of Fiona’s latest release ‘The Summer We Danced’ via NetGalley. The novel was released on April 7th by MIRA and I straight away loved both the book cover and the description of the story. It sounded like a great feel-good read which was just what I needed last week, so I was really excited to get started in it!
Pippa has always loved dancing. When she was younger she spent most of her time at Miss Mimi’s Dance School and dreamt of becoming a professional dancer one day. Until she suddenly dropped out and moved on with her life, eventually getting married and forgetting all about dancing. When her rockstar husband takes part in a reality show where he falls in love with someone else, Pippa finds herself going back to the town she grew up, divorced and alone. Her sister convinces her to start tap dancing lessons with Miss Mimi in order to get back out there again and maybe make some friends along the way. It doesn’t take long for Pippa, though, to realise Miss Mimi is having some serious problems and she needs all the help she can get to save the school from shutting down…
This book turned out to be even better than I expected; a truly heart-warming and simply great read which I couldn’t get enough of. Fiona Harper is a wonderful author whose writing style I really enjoy which resulted in me going through the novel quite quickly. The book mainly focuses on Miss Mimi's Dance School and I loved all the dancing and references to old glamorous Hollywood films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The storyline of the book was great and kept my attention at all times because of the different elements, such as the problems with the dance school and main character Pippa's love life and friends.
Pippa, the main character of the novel, is a great heroine; I instantly liked her and was rooting for her to get a happy ending, while I was also curious to find out more about her background and history. Pippa wouldn't be the same without the lovely secondary characters surrounding her, though. I'm sure I'm not the only reader who fell in love with Mimi, the elderly lady who would do anything to keep her dance school running, and handsome Tom and his cute daughter Lucy. I honestly loved everything about this novel and am sure I won't wait as long with picking up my next Fiona Harper read! 

Rating:10/10

  For more information about this book: Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / Goodreads

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.