Ballet and Tango
A love of dance inspired Andrea Barton’s debut novel, The Godfather of Dance, A Jade Riley Mystery.
My favourite book as a child was The Splendour Book of Ballet by Shirley Goulden. It tells the stories of all the great ballets – Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and more – with entrancing illustrations by Maraja. I spent hours poring over it dreaming of becoming a ballet dancer. Today, the cover is ripped and the pages are dog-eared, but I still love it.
I learnt ballet as a child then had a brief uninspiring stint of dance classes in year ten with other sweaty-palmed teens. When I moved to Nigeria twenty years ago for my husband’s job, I started salsa classes. This led to Argentine tango, then eight years of Latin and ballroom dance classes while I lived in Lagos and then in Houston. I stopped when we moved to Qatar, where partner dancing wasn’t socially acceptable, so there were no teachers. When we returned to Australia, I started again for a year or two, but by then I was too focussed on writing, so I finished for good.
Our relocation to Nigeria also meant I had to give up my job as a career coach, so I took the opportunity to become a writer. I’d always loved storytelling in its many forms: books, movies, theatre, musicals, ballet and more. At last, I had the time to tell my own tales. Ever since, I’ve been storytelling through short stories, stage productions, picture books, blogs, and dance.
My debut novel, The Godfather of Dance, A Jade Riley Mystery, came out this year. A journalist discovers her dance instructor’s fiancée was murdered, and they team up to solve the cold case.
The beauty of writing about dance is it’s such a sensory experience it jumps off the page. I’ve performed some of the dances in the novel, so they were fun to describe. I played up the sensuality of partner dancing for the story, while in real life, I was so focused on form and the technical elements it was more pragmatic than romantic, but as Mark Twain says, ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ The will-they-won’t-they relationship between Jade and Anton was fun to explore.
When it came to designing my book cover, I wanted to encapsulate two ideas: dance and danger. I was thrilled with the overlay of a bullet hole through glass over a couple dancing tango. It’s dramatic and suggests a romance thread. Seeing my book next to The Splendour Book of Ballet, it feels as if I’ve realized my childhood dream, only not in the way I’d imagined.
Andrea runs the book editing company Brightside Story Studio, and is the Vice President of Mansfield Readers and Writers organization, which is planning the next Mansfield Readers and Writers festival. Her debut novel, The Godfather of Dance, is book one of the Jade Riley Mystery series. Book two will be out late 2024. Published by Wings ePress.
‘A riveting mystery spanning Houston and New Orleans that doesn’t let up the pace.’ Sarah Hawthorn, author of The Dilemma and A Voice in the Night
www.andreabartonauthor.com / Facebook: @andreabartonauthor / Insta: @andreabartonauthor / X: @andreabartonau / LinkedIn: Andrea Barton
The Godfather of Dance is available on Amazon, your favourite eBook stores, Barnes & Noble in the US, or Australian bookstores by order through Ingram.