This was extremely short and sweet.
I really did like it, i just wishes it wasn't so fastphased, but it was adorable even so.
Kaito and Cristian was cute and fit good together.

This was such a beautiful romance! I absolutely adore anything to do with ice skating or figure skating so this book was perfect for me. If you love, love, read this book.

I love the premise of this story and the writing was better than expected, but the actual storyline lacked depth. it was dull. I didn't think much to the characters and the plot just plodded along. It's been done before and it's been done better.

While the writing was fairly good, I really found this story to be lacking depth. It felt more like fanfiction. Like I should know these characters already from the fandom so they didn't need to have any background or depth. There was no real substance to why they ended up in a relationship or anything of the sort. Overall it was decent but felt like poorly rebranded fanfic.

Another Dance by LA Ashton follows Kaito Watanabe as he gets to interview his idol, Cristian Alvarez, a figure skating champion. Kaito's interview goes well, and the chemistry between the men is hard to ignore.

This book is quite short and pretty obviously inspired by Yuri on Ice. It falls almost into the fanfiction trap, where because the author is working with characters who already exist, they don't feel the need to flesh out the characters too much. While the characters do stray from the YoI inspirations, it's not super clear on who they are or why they like each other.

I enjoyed this story, but it wasn't fully fleshed out.

This is sweet and swoony. I think the boys' narrative voices were a bit similar, and it was too short to really develop characterisation deeply.

But they are lovely boys who work well together, and whose admiration of each other was really beautiful. Only a glimpse of other characters, as should be in something this short - the focus needs to be on the love interests.


Loved the skating insights and the tangent into music writing for skaters. That was interesting.


Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for advanced copy. It's out now.

Oh boy, what an excellent read. A short one but with everything in it.
Kaito is a journalist. And he can interview his crush skate rider Cristian.
When Cristian arrives Kaito is nervous and shy. Cristian is impressed by Kaito and even read Kaito’s work. Kaito is perplexed Cristian read his work.
They dance around each other, they flirt and it’s all extremely delicate and precious.
When they meet the next evening at an event they have the most delicious encounter in the back of the hall. Cristian is thorough and Kaito opens up. The predator and the prey.

Afterward and alone again Kaito gets back in his own state of mind. He can never be enough.

The atmosphere in this story was so palpable. The attraction, the heat between them, sparks flying around. The body language was masterly written.
The environments were wonderful, all vividly put down.

This was a quick read that unfortunately I did not enjoy. I found the characters, in my opinion, to be lacking any depth.

another dance finds kaito watanabe meeting figure skating superstar cristian alvarez for an interview,
and learning that the guy he's lusted after forever might actually be into him. and it's sweet and low angst, other than you know, characters feeling insecure about how the other person really feels and whether or not they deserve it.

but there's nothing dark or dramatic here. they meet and connect and share this really intense moment and then struggle to figure out what it means. but it's not that complicated because it's really just that they're both super into each other and what's not to like about that?

**another dance will publish on july 8, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/ninestar press in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars. This was a cute story, about a journalist that loves dance and figure skating and the figure skater that he loves. They meet when Kaito gets to meet Cristian and interview him, and they pretty much have chemistry right off the bat. From there they become friends and lovers, it’s a pretty short book, so we don’t get to see a whole lot, but it was a cute story, and it ends where you know they are definitely going to be happy together, with their cats of course.

I’m a big fan of lgbtqia romances. At 98 pages this is more a short story than novella. There wasn’t enough time to really get to know these men. Kaito Watanabi is a well regarded journalist who loves dancing and figure skating. While he is from Manhattan he appears to have been raised within a traditional Japanese family. He is very modest and self-depreciating and it’s unclear if he has been burned in the past or if this is part of his upbringing. Christian Alvarez is a world famous figure skater from Spain. Kaito has been a huge fan and is interviewing him when the story opens.

The premise has a lot of promise. For this reader the problem is the writing. It felt formal and at times florid. A few examples:

“His irises were the color of the sun burning just at sunset, a singed horizon that left heat lingering in its wake.” Or...

“Fiery orange sank away from the clouds, warming their bellies with diffused gold.”

In a story this short every word counts. It would have been better to use them to better develop the characters.

This story fell flat for this reader.

ARC provided in exchange for honest review. 👩‍💻

Gosh I wish this had been longer! I'd happily read 100+ more pages of Kaito and Cristian's lives. As it is though, I'm super happy with what we got. I instantly fell in love with Kaito, who was an anxious mess when we were first introduced to him, as he was so very relatable and so loveable! Cristian, too, was delightful! I loved how playful he was. The relationship that developed between them was both tender and smoking hot, which is the best combination you could get. Ashton always writes beautifully and this novella was no different. I can't wait for more books by them in the future!

Journalist Kaito Watanabe has followed figure-skating for a long time and particularly Cristian Alvarez who he has fanaticised about. Kaito has managed to secure an interview with Cristian and is shocked to find that he has read his work and is a fan. Their mutual admiration transforms into a closer friendship which Kaito can’t quite believe is real. I found myself smiling as I read this story as I found Kaito to be really cute. Enjoyable read. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

There’s a surprising amount of character development in the short span of this novella. Kaito is a serious journalist and he’s been following Cristian’s career for years. When they meet in person there is definite chemistry, but Kaito’s lack of confidence forces him to write it off as one of those things.

There are lots of little details that build intimacy in this novel: perfect descriptions of facial expressions, coincidences like matching key chains, men and their pets. The story moves quickly but still gives the reader enough time to sink into the plot.

In this book, Ashton briefly explores the relationship between two men, one of whom is famous. Of course, there is a lot of insecurity and there are mixed messages. The prose is tight and manages to be expressive at the same time. The descriptions of physicality were beautiful, whether the men were skating, dancing or in a passionate embrace. As a dancer myself, I appreciated the way the author wrote about movement! So beautiful!

This novella is too brief at only seventy-five pages, but I was amazed at how much I came to enjoy the characters in so few words! I will definitely pick up more books by this author and look forward to whatever they will write in the future!

This book feels like fanfiction. I don’t (necessarily) mean that in a bad way. It reminds me of good fanfiction. But the problem is it feels like fanfiction in the sense that it’s like I’m reading a fic from a fandom I know nothing about. Like I’m missing some vital context to make sense of it and get that emotional payoff.

Another Dance is essentially a Yuri on Ice AU where Yuuri is a journalist and Viktor is Spanish. Kaito and Cristian meet for the first time pre-competition when Kaito interviews Cristian (side note, here: you have no idea how often I start typing Yuuri and Viktor and then remembering this is not quite that close to being fic). After the comp, they hook up (in public! That’s not unhygienic at all). And then. Not all that much else happens.

Yes, it’s a novella. Yes, I don’t expect huge amounts of plot/action in a novella. But I would at least like some development of the relationship. Here, they met, they flirted, they hooked up, they flirted some more. So when I say it felt like a fic, this is what I mean. It felt like a 10k fic that’s just been written to somehow get two characters in a fandom together. But I don’t know the fandom, I don’t have any reason to want them together. And the novella doesn’t give me a reason to. A third of it is taken up by sex scenes, so that leaves even less time to convince me to go for this relationship.

In a way, that combined with the sense I got of it being like YOI fic. Because the characters felt so like Yuuri and Viktor, I think that’s why I felt as though I was missing something. Maybe that’s something you would like, but for me, I was just a bit thrown off.

But, it’s a good story. It’s a readable story. Even if it felt a little like it should have been in some kind of larger context.