Letters to Follow, A Dancer’s Adventure, By Paddy Eger, Tendril Press, 2017
Paddy Eger’s heroines just get better and better. Letters to Follow, A Dancer’s Adventure, the third volume of the 84 Ribbons trilogy, flows as nimbly as the feet of Eger’s dancers through adventures, adversity, and accolades during a year of dancing and maturing on two continents.
Lynne, the central figure in the third book of Paddy Eger’s trilogy of the lives of young ballerinas, is a delight. She is a good dancer, an excellent member of the corps de ballet of which she is a part, and, best of all for the readers of Letters To Follow, a character who grows and changes throughout the book in utterly believable and admirable ways.
The title of the third volume, Letters to Follow, refers to the letters which Lynne promises will follow the postcards she sends from the Intermountain Ballet Company’s tour of France during the summer of 1957. Lynne does a lot of growing as a ballerina on this tour, but more impressive is her growth as a young woman at the edge of adulthood. She is faced with many challenges and overcomes them all.
Scenes of Paris, large and small towns in France, and the hard trip Lynn must make over the Pyrenees mountains are all drawn with detail and a kind of fondness, as though Eger has been to all these places herself as a young dancer. The reader feels very much a part of the dance company’s frenetic life as they tour from town to town.
As a coming-of-age novel Letters to Follow could stand alone just fine; as the finale to the Paddy Eger’s dance trilogy it is very satisfying, leaving the reader hoping for another sequel “to follow.”
Paddy Eger’s heroines just get better and better. Letters to Follow, A Dancer’s Adventure, the third volume of the 84 Ribbons trilogy, flows as nimbly as the feet of Eger’s dancers through adventures, adversity, and accolades during a year of dancing and maturing on two continents.
Lynne, the central figure in the third book of Paddy Eger’s trilogy of the lives of young ballerinas, is a delight. She is a good dancer, an excellent member of the corps de ballet of which she is a part, and, best of all for the readers of Letters To Follow, a character who grows and changes throughout the book in utterly believable and admirable ways.
The title of the third volume, Letters to Follow, refers to the letters which Lynne promises will follow the postcards she sends from the Intermountain Ballet Company’s tour of France during the summer of 1957. Lynne does a lot of growing as a ballerina on this tour, but more impressive is her growth as a young woman at the edge of adulthood. She is faced with many challenges and overcomes them all.
Scenes of Paris, large and small towns in France, and the hard trip Lynn must make over the Pyrenees mountains are all drawn with detail and a kind of fondness, as though Eger has been to all these places herself as a young dancer. The reader feels very much a part of the dance company’s frenetic life as they tour from town to town.
As a coming-of-age novel Letters to Follow could stand alone just fine; as the finale to the Paddy Eger’s dance trilogy it is very satisfying, leaving the reader hoping for another sequel “to follow.”
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