Judith’s review of Tiny Dancer (Divine Creek Ranch #13) by Heather Rainier
The day former exotic dancer Camilla O’Neal began working at The Dancing Pony, she told co-owner Ben Lawrence and head bartender Quinten Parks that “work is work and pleasure is pleasure” and she kept the two very separate. Working with their tiny dancer brings Ben and Quinten as much pain as pleasure. After two years of secretly lusting over and loving this blonde temptress, they have a plan.
Camilla goes about her job as assistant manager at The Dancing Pony with boundless energy in outfits designed to distract. Her plans for owning her own nightclub are a driving force within her. She’d left the world of stripping and pole dancing at a gentlemen’s club behind to pursue her dreams but finds Ben and Quinten an increasing distraction from her goals. Can she handle mixing business with pleasure when her men decide it’s time to claim her?
The Dancing Pony has figured prominently in all of the Divine Creek series and now it is the primary setting of a polyamorous love triangle that is a study in delayed gratification. Certainly the heroine, former exotic dancer Camilly O’Neal, has more than sufficient reasons for wanting to establishing a strictly professional relationship with the two men who are her constant companions and with whom she has a close working situation. Throughout this series The Dancing Pony has always been a club that enforces sane and safe entertainment, strictly enforcing good behavior and respectful behavior toward women and keeping violent encounters far removed from its premises. So Camilla’s attitude does indeed fit into the kind of working environment that co-owner Ben Lawrence (together with Grace’s husband, Ethan) want to always maintain. But for once, their almost overwhelming desire to begin a long-term relationship with Camilla is now in jeopardy.
This is another wonderful story set in the fictional community of Divine, Texas, populated by all kinds of people, many of whom live in committed polyamorous relationships. It is also a community situated in what is fondly referred to as “the Bible Belt” so that such relationships are difficult for some to tolerate and that kind of prejudice has been featured in several of the Divine Creek novels. However, these intrepid souls, those who know who they love and how they wish to live, seem to be determined to live according to their own rules, recognizing that love deserves to be expressed in as many ways as people can conceive, with the understanding that it is authentic, caring, nurturing, respectful and consensual. This book really chronicles the ways that these two men support and nurture Camilla’s dream, knowing that giving her this dream may well be the path into her heart.
Best of all, the author’s writing skills just keep on growing and her capacity to tell a good story, evident from book one, keeps on keeping on. It’s the kind of expertise that makes these stories come alive, that makes these characters leap off the page and assume almost realistic life of their own. Those of us who have read all the novels and have re-read many of them, know that these people could easily exist in an American community. Their lives, their loves, their challenges, their hurts and wounds, are the stuff of normal human living and bringing them alive in these books is done only by an author who has that sense of what people are really about, who lives in the moment and understands how people feel and how the expressions of those feelings can come alive even in a fictional work. That’s one of the reasons I am always delighted when a new Heather Rainier book appears.
This novel was released at the end of 2012 but I hope you’ll get it and enjoy it as much as I did. You owe it to yourself to get acquainted with these delightful people.
I happily give this novel a rating of 5 out of 5.
You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.
This book is available from Siren Publishing, Inc.. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
Thank you so much for the enthusiastic review of Tiny Dancer, Dr. J. As always, you can be relied on to accurately summarize my hearts intent when writing a book. I’m so happy you enjoyed it and that the characters and situations ring true for you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the next book in the series, coming out April 19th.