The Flamenco Academy

Early in her career, Sarah Bird wrote a clutch of romance novels as Tory Cates – a pseudonym that might be translated as "conservative delicacies," which almost sums up the damsels-and-rakes genre in a phrase. But genre fiction is too limiting for a writer as irrepressibly clever as Bird, whose nove......more

What is flamenco? Though there can be joy in the art form, its history is a grim one, a past of misery, hunger, resistance and defiance. According to historian Felix Grande, it arose out of persecution, exploitation, humiliation, wholesale genocide and expulsion. “It is a storm of exasperation and g......more

This was really good. At parts it was almost torturous to read, because I could anticipate what was going to happen and started bleeding for the protagonist before it did. (view spoiler)[ Like the narrator, I hated Didi by the end so much... I just was wishing something bad would happen to her, something that wasn' (hide spoiler)]......more

Full disclosure, I was destined to love this book (and thankfully I did). I lived in Albuquerque, NM from age 18-24 and it was as if this book was written about some girls in my extended circle of classmates at the University of New Mexico. I was stunned by the accuracy with which Bird writes about......more

Two young women are caught up in the revival of the Flamenco dance in this funny and sad tale set in Albuquerque. Using the backdrop of the author's experiences at Highland High School (where I knew the author, she being in my graduating class) and the University of New Mexico. The central imperative......more