Reviews:
"Adrienne Sharp writes with breathtaking perception about the needs and desires of the body, its resilience and its vulnerabilities. Art, passion, history intersect with burning immediacy in this beautifully crafted book."
—Chitra Divakaruni, author of The Mistress of Spices


Author of The Mistress of Spices“A stunningly lovely book about dance and dancers and their hard-won moments of beauty. . . . I can’t believe it’s a debut work–it’s brilliantly clear, dramatically swift, and knowingly conceived.”
—John Casey, author of The Half-Life of Happiness


“A series of intimate portraits of the men and women who sacrifice their chances at ordinary happiness . . . as they strive to transform themselves into visions of near-celestial beauty and grace. . . . White Swan, Black Swan compels us to consider the troubled hearts and souls inside the agile bodies that astonish us with their ability to defy gravity and to exceed our wildest dreams of what the body can do.”
—O Magazine


“In this breathtaking suite of short stories, Sharp, herself a dancer and ardent observer of the ballet world, adroitly captures the elegance, magic, sexuality, obsession, ambition, sacrifice, vulnerability, and pain that define dancers’ lives . . . . Most ballets are about thwarted longing and love, and so are Sharp’s masterfully choreographed dramas.”
—Booklist (starred)


“The dance world becomes palpably real in this accomplished debut collection by Sharp.”
—Publishers Weekly
 

“Luminous debut collection…where bodies, loves, and lives are sacrificed to an art that often seems more punishment than reward…A well-accomplished…debut.”
—Kirkus Review