Dance Away with Me

Starred review from March 16, 2020
Two people determined to withdraw from society instead discover the power of human connection in this deeply felt romance from Phillips (First Star I See Tonight). Midwife Tess Hartsong retreats to remote Runaway Mountain, Tenn., following the death of her husband. While letting loose with a cathartic one-person dance party, Tess provokes the anger of Ian North, a reclusive artist who just moved nearby and confronts Tess over the volume of her music. He’s quickly followed by the pregnant Bianca, who introduces herself as Ian’s wife and strikes up an easy friendship with Tess. When Bianca goes into early labor with no time to get to the hospital, Ian calls upon Tess’s help in a tense, deeply emotional scene that ends with Bianca’s death. Ian hires Tess to help take care of the premature baby and, despite her best efforts, Tess can’t help getting attached to the newborn. Raising the baby together while facing a firestorm of town gossip, Tess and Ian grow close and open up about their secrets, among them the true nature of Ian and Bianca’s relationship. Phillips layers this poignant love story with robust descriptions of mountain scenery and society, and a well-handled subplot about Tess’s fight for comprehensive sex education for the town’s teens. This stirring romance is sure to capture readers’ hearts. Agent: Steve Axelrod, the Axelrod Agency.

May 1, 2020

After unexpectedly losing her 35-year-old husband to pneumonia, Tess Hartsong flees to a ramshackle cabin in the Tennessee mountains. She can't face all the pitying looks and well-meaning platitudes anymore. She's left her life as a midwife behind and plans on loudly dancing away her emotions on the mountain--until a handsome neighbor screams at her to turn down the music. The neighbor turns out to be famous street artist Ian North, who has fled to the mountain in order to work in solitude. Instead, he has to contend with a half-naked dancing woman and his longtime friend Bianca, who is pregnant. When Bianca goes into labor early and a storm prevents her from getting to the hospital, Tess is forced to use her midwife skills again and ends up being persuaded to help care for the preemie. Soon Tess finds herself becoming attached to baby Wren, prickly Ian, and the small town that needs her outspokenness. VERDICT While the multiple rare medical conditions that drive the plot may strain credulity, Ian and Tess are pitch-perfect in this sweet and sizzling stand-alone story from best-selling Phillips (First Star I See Tonight). [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/19.]--Melissa DeWild, Comstock Park, MI

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2020
Why can't everyone just leave her alone? Midwife Tess Hartsong came to Runaway Mountain in Tennessee hoping to work through the grief she's been struggling with ever since her husband died two years earlier. However, Tess soon finds her plans to wallow in her fortress of solitude interrupted by a pesky parade of residents of the small town of Tempest, beginning with her neighbor, Ian North, a celebrated yet creatively blocked artist, now as cranky as a grizzly bear awakened from hibernation. No one does the delicate dance of romance with as much finesse as RITA Award-winning Phillips' (First Star I See Tonight, 2016). In this superbly written stand-alone, this master storyteller's flair for highly imaginative plots and flawless characterization are on full display, resulting an emotionally enriching, breathtakingly brilliant tale of heartbreak and hope. Phillips not only sensitively tackles difficult topics such as grief and guilt, she also explores the creative process, sex education in the community, and the state of medicine in rural America, in lively writing liberally laced with multiple layers of delicious wit and snarky charm.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)