I really enjoyed this book, especially since it was a part of history that I was not that familiar with (dance marathons in the depression). This book was immersive and a quick read.

Set during the Great Depression, this one focuses less on the Dust Bowl and more on the people struggling to survive. Evie grows up with a terrible mother after her father dies. Once she’s 17, she goes to Galveston to become a nurse. Something happens on the day of her graduation that prevents her from getting her pin. She then starts work as a nurse anyway for a dance marathon. Dance marathons were big during this time and she finds friends, and purpose there. Dance marathoners put up with some harsh conditions to make some money and get 3 meals a day. I definitely couldn’t do it! There is a potential love story here but it’s not the focus of the story. The setting and time period is wonderful to read about. I liked the characters and Evies development. I did feel like it dragged in some places and this is my main complaint. Overall, an enjoyable historical fiction about something I wasn’t already familiar with!

Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillanusa for the eARC for review.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier was an interesting read overall, however, I didn’t connect with it personally at a deep level. The characters were well-developed and likable and I empathized with the horrible abuses the main characters had to work through, some of them heartbreaking. I learned a lot about dance marathons during the Great Depression and what people living during that time of history had to sacrifice just to live. This was a longer read than I am used to, and at around 80% completed, I was convinced I would never reach the end of the story. I binge-read one night and finally finished, ready to move on to the next read.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Set during the Depression, Evie Grace Devlin, watches as the Starlight Pier burns into ashes. As she watches, she wonders how she got where she is. Can she find the happiness that she craves, even if it is where she doesn't want to be - in the spotlight?

This is the first book I have read by Sarad Bird and I really enjoyed it!!! Being a nurse at a dance marathon during the depression. This was a different genre for me, but one that kept me turning the pages!!! I look forward to more from this author!!! Read and enjoy!!!

Evie has been fighting her whole life. Fighting to eat, to get her mother’s affection, to find a way to a better future. So when she manages to get accepted into nursing school she's already prepared for the uphill battle of long shifts, bedpans, exams, and textbooks. What she wasn’t expecting was the constant fear of being found out for who she really is. Will her vaudeville past come to light and corrupt her chances at a future in nursing? And if so, what in the world would she do? She ran out on her mother. And Vaudeville is over. Who would be there to hold her up and force her to just keep dancing?

Great Depression. Vaudevillian heroine. Hot dancer guy. LGBTQIA subplot. This book has a little something for everyone! I enjoyed it thoroughly and have very few complaints really. The writing was super descriptive without shoving it down your throat. I was captivated by the main characters and the idea of the dance marathon (who knew that was a thing). I found myself not wanting to put this down more often than not, which is a good sign in my book. I loved learning about Depression Era Galveston and was reminded a bit of The Four Winds and Blind Tiger while reading this one. Overall, it was a solid new historical fiction. I did think it was a bit too long. There were a few times it felt like the story was dragging a bit and losing momentum, but the author recovered well with a new twist. It read a bit like a YA novel, which isn’t usually my thing, but I can see how/why this one would appeal to young people and those who like a good clean novel. I definitely suggest snagging this from your local library when you get a chance.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird provides the reader with a unblinking look at the misery in America during the Great Depression. By the telling of the story of Evie Grace Devlin, the author exposes the hardest of times. Evie had been a very young performer in the days of vaudeville, having been pushed on the stage by an unloving, selfish and abusive mother. When the days of vaudeville began to wane, she worked diligently to become a nurse, only to be sidelined before graduation. Because she needed employment and income, she found herself absorbed into the cruel and rough world of dance marathons. I thought Last Dance on the Starlight Pier was well-researched but what kept me from giving it a higher rating was the slow-moving plot. The book begins to drag due to overly long chapters that seem repetitive. However, the characters bring the book to life, providing the reader with a feel for the era. Evie Grace Devlin is a memorable character, someone readers will cheer for. This is my first book by Sarah Bird and I would enjoy reading more. If historical fiction is a favorite genre, you will enjoy this book. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Prohibition, the Great Depression, dance marathons. Not 3 subjects you would expect to find together, but was so interesting. Evie Grace is trying to survive against many hardships. She is strong and resilient and her story is so interesting to read.

Prepare yourself for a historical adventure trip that takes you from Galveston, Houston, Northern Texas, Chicago and back to Galveston again.

Evie Grace Devlin, whose hateful mother exploited her as a vaudeville star, has finally broken loose. Evie has won a scholarship to a nursing school and off she goes.

Galveston - nursing school for Evie. Friendship with Sofie, whose family 'runs' Galveston. Evie excels in her studies but does not get her pin.

Houston - she decides to return to Houston and Mother Mamie, even though it will be painful. Before that happens, she finds Jake, an old friend from Vaudeville who is involved with the marathon dance craze. Evie gets hired as a nurse. The dancers are on their feet 3/4 of the day and night and need TLC.

Litchfield- we meet her grandmother who is suffering because of the effects of dust storms.

Chicago- Al Capone reigns. More marathon dancing.

Galveston-the troupe moves to Galveston and situates itself on the Starlite Pier in the renovated Starlite Palace.

Along the way, Evie meets Zave, handsome, charismatic Zave.

I have left a lot of the action out; I want you to read this engaging story and find out for yourself.

5 stars

Dallas Morning News - BOOKS
On the seamy side
https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=64c78a96-5ccf-4685-bcc2-fe5f66023986

By JOYCE SÁENZ HARRIS
Special Contributor
artslife@dallasnews.com
Many baby boomers might first have learned about the Depression-era marathon dancing craze from the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? But Austin writer Sarah Bird learned about it from her mother, Colista McCabe Bird, whose stories inspired her daughter’s latest tale.

“Collie Mac” was a teenager during the Depression, and she grew up watching frantic dance marathons the way that people today watch reality TV or soap operas. She became an Army nurse during World War II and then married an Air Force officer, raising Sarah and her five siblings while moving every couple of years from one military outpost to another.

In Bird’s new novel, Last Dance on the Starlight Pier, protagonist Evelyn Grace Devlin has an even more peripatetic childhood than did her creator. Evie Grace isn’t a military kid, though, and she doesn’t have vigilant parents watching out for her. Instead, she has only the memory of her doting dad, the dapper vaudeville dancer Denny Devlin. Denny died of congestive heart failure when Evie was 5 — leaving her in the unwilling hands of her mother.

Mamie is a chilly, beautiful sociopath who forces young Evie to work in seamy venues to support them both, under threat of being left at an orphanage. So Evie grows up a vaudeville brat, a half-orphan raised on short rations, insecurity and the smell of greasepaint. An introvert at heart, Evie covers her shy vulnerability with a show of toughness.

Memories of her father’s last days in a hospital inspire Evie to finish school and become a nurse, escaping the slums and dance halls of Houston so she can establish respectability far from Mamie’s clutches. A new, decent life awaits, “If only I could impersonate a normal girl well enough to seize it.”

Her destination? Galveston, which in 1929 is “a wide-open town ... drenched in a dark and irresistible glamour.”

In the spring of 1932, after three years of work and study, Evie and Sofie are set to receive the coveted silver RN pin conferring their professional status. But a powerful enemy snatches Evie’s dream away from her, and she finds herself back in Houston, working on the fringes of showbiz.

This time, she hooks up with a producer on the marathon dance circuit, working first as a backstage nurse and then as a star ingenue, dancing with the most attractive man she has ever met. Zave Cassidy, “the Handsome Hoofer,” reminds Evie strangely of her long-lost father, and their chaste partnership fires her romantic dreams.

When her useful connection to Sofie allows her to return to Galveston, she is borne home on a wave of popular support. Evie is sure that a happy ending is finally within her grasp: a reunion with Sofie, a future with Zave, her RN pin and vindication.

In Last Dance, Sarah Bird ruthlessly strips away the shallow glamour of marathon dancing, exposing cynical, cash-driven machinations founded on desperate poverty and run by chiselers. It is, like Galveston’s Starlight Pier itself, a shabby thing gussied up with a fresh coat of paint.

Yet, in the people who inhabit the dance floor, Bird creates a cast of fully realized, compassionate human beings. When the marathon dancers adopt “Nurse Evie” as one of their own, she discovers that her backstage patients, just like her adopted sister Sofie, need her to save their lives, every bit as much as she needs them to save hers.

Joyce Sáenz Harris is a Dallas freelance writer.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier

Sarah Bird

(St. Martin’s Press, $28.99)

Having loved Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen I was really looking forward to this read. Set in Galveston and Chicago during the Great Depression, I was introduced to a very different side of the depression through the lens of Evie Grace Devlin, a young women forging her way through this tumultuous time in history. Never having had any knowledge of the dance marathons that occurred during this time frame, I was horrified reading the passages describing the lengths the dancers went to to try to remain in the show. It was so inhumane. Learning Edie’s backstory certainly gave her character more depth.
The addition of glimpses of the political climate with FDR and Hoover were interesting. The power of the mafia to control cities was also a strong thread. Zave, to me, was the most realistic character. He captured my heart and I felt his frustration with having to live a lie.
An enjoyable read. Many thanks to Sarah Bird for depicting the desolation and also the resilience of people during the Great Depression, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read this just published story

I give Last Dance on the Starlight Pier 3.5 Stars.

It's the Great Depression, and humans are desperate for a little entertainment. Families looked for cheap escapes and find marathons. Couples dance in an effort to earn a money prize but behind the scenes, the professionals have everything about the marathon planned to a “T”.

Evie Grace Devin finds herself in one of these marathons after she is kicked out of nursing school because of the Director's prejudice. At first, she is helping with just the injuries of the dancers but is then swallowed whole by the need for dramatics and dancers. Her anchor is Zave, a beloved dancer who learned from her father. Evie's past always haunts her and when that collides with a secret Zave has been desperate to hide, the dance becomes more than money; it's a way out.

The first three-fourths of this book fly by. Sarah Bird wraps you around her finger bringing you into a story that is more complex than it first seems The colorful characters matter to you and you are invested in their future. When Evie fails or when she succeeds, the reader is right there beside her.

My only complaint is that the titular dance takes too long to get to in the book. The chapters there are mundane until things suddenly take a turn for the worst. But the fallout of this goes back to the great pacing of the beginning of the book and the ending is quite satisfactory.

Overall, this is an engaging book that shouldn't take up too much of your time. Enjoy a visit to the Greta Depression you luckily get to leave but with more respect for all those who went through it.

I just finished this and I’m almost speechless…. Almost. First of all I didn’t think this wad a romance. It was basically historical fiction. I only witness heartache and then more heartache.
I probably wouldn’t of chose the novel if it didn’t have romance. I am a hopeless romantic and during difficult fiction I survive on the romance parts.
I read some of this and listened to some of it. I love Cassandra Campbell as a narrator. She always does a superb job.
So getting back to the novel I was devastated or angry about most of the characters. And the protagonist had a terrible time. Really no one.
I am ok with this and suggest it if you want some history of the USA. And learn more about marathon dancing.
Thanks St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley.

Good story!

Description
Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes.

July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She’d come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied—a family, a purpose, even love—waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of both dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn’t anything this country can’t do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4+ stars
This was filled with a ton of emotion and probably needs some content warnings so I would suggest looking those up. I really got pulled into the stories and loved the growth of (most of) the characters. It was really interesting to read a historical fiction set during the Great Depression as a reminder of how bad things have been in the past - even less than 100 years ago. If you like historical fiction I definitely recommend this!

I was provided an advanced copy of this by @netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
Evie Grace Devlin has struggled through life after her father (a famous vaudeville dancer) passes. Her narcissistic mother tries to make money any way she can, even at the expense of her child. But after graduating high school Evie is given an opportunity to turn it all around and become a nurse! During nursing school life seems to be looking up. Until, her plans are thwarted on the night of her pinning ceremony. Left without options in the midst of the great depression, she stumbles upon the dance marathon scene where they don't care if she isn't officially a nurse. However, soon she realizes to get what she really wants, she may have to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight!
This one was just ok for me. It felt a bit long and melodramatic. Evie was sometimes hard to like. She seemed naive and made some big decisions quickly and although tried to rationalize them, they were often not great. It was an interesting look into the world of dance marathons during the great depression, something I didn't know about. And there were a lot of topics covered; poverty, ethics, homosexuality, election of FDR, and gang/mob families... Lots! The story kept my attention and I wanted to find out what would happen, but it did seem to try to do too much.
Because my last book put me in a bit of a slump, I missed this publication date this past Tuesday, but that means if it sounds like a book your like to read, you don't have to wait!
#LastDanceOnTheStarlightPier #NetGalley

Evie Grace Devlin has never had what she has always wanted. Love, friends and family she can rely on. In 1932, when hardship strikes, Evie is led into a world of dance marathons while trying to be a nurse. She does what she must, to survive. Will Evie find everything she has been looking for or will it lead her down a path she can not come back from?

This novel by Sara Bird was a look into the past when dance marathons were the rage during the depression. The story is full of intricate and complex characters that come together to do what they must in order to survive. It gives the reader such an in depth look into how people lived and worked in the thirties. While I found the history interesting, I had a hard time grasping some of the decisions Evie made and could not warm up to her character. It was a good book for the genre in which it was written though, which I enjoyed. St. Martin’s Press generously gifted me a copy of the book in exchange for my unbiased opinion. I'm rating this one at four stars.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is an engaging historical fiction tale set during the Great Depression. Evie's tale takes us from a dysfunctional childhood to a time of hope and then into the world of marathon dancing in the Depression. I was especially engaged in this book because we don't often read about this world and so the history and the setting were interesting and of course I was rooting for Evie throughout. I enjoyed visiting this time and these characters.

I think in another time and place in my life, this book might be endearing and a fun read. Right now, though, I am having to DNF it. The first section, where our main character, Evie, is studying to become a nurse, was so interesting, and I wished we could have seen more of that story-her friendship with Sofie, the daughter of a pseudo-mobster, maybe?, her run-ins with the director who wanted to see her ousted because of her past, etc. All of that lasted a few chapters, and then we move on to the dance marathon circuit.

But not before an absolutely terrible flashback scene, where Evie's mom basically forces her CHILD to walk the runway at a strip show, complete with pervy guys going to town on themselves in front of kid Evie. I couldn't find content warnings for this book, so I was blindsided when this scene came around, and I was left with an awful taste in my mouth. After that, I had a hard time connecting to any character, and I found the story tedious (some scenes were fun-the first dance hall scene where Evie gets to show off her nursing skills was great.) I couldn't get over the dance marathon runners not cussing, though. There were lots of, "gee-dee"s (which was funny at first, and then a bit cringy) and then I landed on a, "fuggin'" and I couldn't take the book seriously anymore, even if that is how people talked during the Great Depression.

I may try this one out again on down the road, but my honest opinion as of right now is that this is a book with a lot of promise, and if you enjoy historical fiction and powering through some bits (like those mentioned prior), then you might give this one a try! It just wasn't my cup of tea.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC.

I was so intrigued by the premise of Last Dance on the Starlight Pier—They Shoot Horses, Don’t They got me interested in dance marathons. I don’t think I was expecting a story quite so bleak, and I also feel like I couldn’t really connect with Evie. Poor decision after poor decision made her hard to root for. It was a little bit disjointed for me as well. I enjoyed the book enough, but I don’t think I would re-read it.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance reader’s copy.