Dance with Me

Tales of the Bookshelves

By: Livia J. Elliot

Narrated by: Alison Phoenix

In a world of beauty, a ceramic-made ballerina awakens atop her music box. She must dance for her elven owners, and so her ballet goes on and on. They praise her elegance, her poise and balance, until one day she falls and her ceramic fractures—but the ballerina dances again, ignoring her ever-increasing fissures. The music plays, captivating and demanding... but should she dance? Even when what she once loved becomes a trap?

A clever, dark, psychological fairy tale for adult listeners.

©2025 Livia J. Elliot (P)2025 Livia J. Elliot

Would warmly recommend

This is a highly metaphorical and lyrical story with a really interesting premise. However, being so highly metaphorical and very much a fairy tale in its writing kept me emotionally at a distance from the characters. But with me being a highly character driven reader, this distance kept me from connecting with the characters and therefore, the story, in the way I wanted to.

Characters felt too much like abstract vessels to carry the metaphors and themes for my taste. However, this is very much a personal preference and a me problem, rather than the story's problem, as such distance is very much in line with fairy tales. I think this is a lovely story with lyrical writing style that I would warmly recommend to people, especially to readers who are less character driven than me as well as to the readers who are predominately theme driven.

The audio narrator, Alison Phoenix, was awesome and has carefully added certain elements (that the author talks about in her author's note) that enhance the reading experience and I would recommend picking up this book on audio.