A COMPANY OF SWANS BY EVA IBBOTSON

This book is about ballet, but it wasn't really what I expected with the cover featuring what appeared to be a fairly young girl and lots of shiny foil and floral designs.

I expected another, fairly cliched read about a young girl who overcomes poverty/oppression/injury to achieve her dreams but really, it was quite different to that.

Harriet is seventeen, older than the typical main character of these ballet novels. Her father is a professor who only allows her to dance for her health. She's a quiet character, described as quite plain but strangely beautiful when she dances. She is invited to join the Dubrov Ballet Company who are travelling to the Amazonian city of Manaus, but knows that her father will not let her go, partly because she is about to get engaged to Edward Finch-Dutton. She meets a young boy, Henry, at a large estate near her home, who, upon discovering her dream to travel to Manaus, asks that she search for a Boy who used to live at Stavely who he wants to meet. Harriet promises to do so.

She eventually decides to run away and she joins the ballet company. Once in Manaus she meets Rom, a wealthy Englishman, who she quickly realises is the Boy, and the two are instantly attracted to one another. When Harriet is pursued by Edward Rom rescues her, but their relationship is disrupted by a surprise arrival in Manaus.

I found that although some of the characters were well-developed and described (including Rom and Harriet's friend Marie-Claude), Harriet herself was not very well-developed. She had no interesting quirks that made her unique from any other girl, so it was hard, as the reader, to understand why Rom fell for her.

The book was also full of a lot of coincidences, so many so that it was slightly unbelievable. In a whole city, how likely is it that the director of the Opera House where Harriet and the ballet performs just happens to be the Boy who Harriet is searching for?

However I appreciated how ballet was not overused in the book. Harriet loves ballet, but the plot really isn't about her running away, it's about love and adventure. And a little bit about overcoming problems to follow your dreams, but not too much.

Butterflies: 7 out of 10

Recommended for: girls over 14. Boys can read it, but I really don't think they'll be that interested.

Warnings: unexpectedly, sex. It is treated very nicely (mostly), and not graphic in any way, but it's most definitely there, and any reader would be able to pick it up. Rom is widely regarded as a seductor who has had many partners, and the night they first meet Harriet believes he is going to rape her, though he does not. Also Harriet ends up involved in a seductive dance routine when she fills in for her friend (who cannot perform it because of a coincidental encounter) which is described in a fair amount of detail, though it's really not that bad.