Book Review
“Shimmying Faith” by Linda Graves
Reviewed by Maia
If you are
looking for a “beach read” romance novel with a “belly dancer” in it, this is
the book for you.
(Spoiler alert:
I give away several plot points in the following summary.)
There’s plenty
of action in the book; Faith discovers her fiance cheating, loses her job and
her apartment all within a few days. This propels her back to her home town
where she rooms with her dear friend from college (who also happens to be part
of her former belly dance troupe as well as a frequent partier AND traveler).
She has an encounter with an accident-prone hunk at a restaurant, only to find
that he’s the CEO of the company with which she’s interviewing. Surprise! She
gets the job! Somehow, she’s able to immediately resume her old job as a
belly dancer at a local restaurant (where she earns huge tips, of course) and
embarks on a (ultimately unsuccessful) quest to become promiscuous. Intensive,
alcohol-soaked partying ensues, resulting in blackouts and vomiting. There are several pratfalls and many other
injuries, at least two seriously evil (read: homicidal) characters, several
steamy (pretty explicit) sex scenes, as well as the obligatory sexual assault.
Don’t forget the happy ending involving a white dress and flowers!
If you are a
fan of formula romance you will probably enjoy this book, unless you are
offended by portrayals of belly dancers as temptresses. “Shimmying Faith”
doesn’t require a lot of deep thought. I read it in two hours.
Sadly, the book
is filled with spelling and grammatical errors (one example: “jester” for
“gesture”) and would have benefited from more rigorous editing. Equally
bothersome were clichés (the dancer “struts” and permits body tipping in her
cleavage, as well as making sexual gestures with a sword and flipping coins
with her belly) and melodrama (complete with drugged Champagne and gun-play).
Graves portrays her belly dancer as a seductress intent on performing tricks
with multiple props in order to emphasize her sexual availability, although she
tries to indicate that her dancer is a serious artist by describing her
rehearsal process and her emotional attachment to the dance. It’s difficult to
reconcile the contrast between the two images.
“Shimmying
Faith” is a solid first try at a belly dance-related romance novel although it
is to be wished that Graves had had a more attentive editor to help her
flesh-out her characters, point out the stereotypes and inconsistencies and
diligently eliminate spelling and grammar errors, which distract from the
action-packed story.
