I had heard of dance marathons, but didn't know that much about them. "Last Dance on the Starlight Pier" changed that! I felt the alternating waves of energy and exhaustion of the dancers in this detailed account of men and women who spent days on the floor, at the height of the Depression. The main action of this book takes place in 1932, as Evie Grace Devlin finishes nursing school in Galveston, TX, but is denied her pin as a registered nurse due to her childhood in vaudeville. She struggles to regroup and ends up as both a nurse tending to the marathon dancers, and a dancer herself. She works to redeem herself and earn her pin, and connect to her past, through her relationship with a man who was taught to dance by her beloved late father. The financial woes and political dimension of the Great Depression form the backdrop to this story, which is filled with colorful characters and settings ranging from the dusty plains of the Texas panhandle to the gritty city of Chicago. Although the story takes place almost a century ago, readers will see parallels to the present day in this thoughtful and exciting novel. The narration of the audiobook really brings the adventures of Evie and her friends to life, and is highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this ARC!

Evie Grace Devlin was only five when her father died and her mother put her to work as the breadwinner. He was a phenomenal dancer on the vaudeville circuit and her memories are warm and joyous, except for those in the hospital where the nurses set up a cot because Mamie didn't visit. Mamie will forever say that Evie Grace's father abandoned Mamie.. She promptly ramped up her little daughters vaudeville toe dance act, trashing her feet so Evie Grace could brought home the wages -- until vaudeville died.. Eventually, they end up on Vinegar Hill in Houston, the poorest neighborhood, where Evie Grace works two jobs and earns her high school diploma. She has won a scholarship to a Catholic nursing school, in Galveston where she'll be the only Protestant. There, she meets Sophie Amadeo, whose family turns out to be important in the community, but despite her stellar performance, a problem crops up and Evie Grace ends up back in Houston, stumbling upon a dance marathon group.

Up till now, between being poor already and having a full scholarship to nursing school, the depression hasn't hit her personally -- she had nowhere to go but up. Joining the marathon world, she finds people from all walks of life who are now down and out, whether they are in the stands or in the throes of exhaustion on the dance floor. The story is engrossing. I listened six hours straight to the audio one day. I enjoyed the narrator and the choices she made a lot. Characters, emotional connection, evocative settings. Last Dance on the Starlight Pier has it all! The themes include a lot about poverty, past childhood abuse that infects some adult characters, complicated loyalties, varying values and an interesting take on being LGBTQ in the thirties. There are gimmicks in the dances meant to draw in the public, silver showers where attendees throw coins from the stands onto their favorites, but all along, we know that a building that held Evie Grace's last marathon burned to the ground and she has just come to wondering why the man she loved committed suicide. This is a memorable story, beautifully told.

Was interesting read during the depression era and the life of marathon dancers. I love it when reading a book I learn something new. Like the marathon dancers would compete nonstop for months! The character development of Evie was exceptional. Starts off with a sad childhood and the lost of her beloved father. Her mother using her as her meal ticket. When Evie was finally old enough she got a scholarship to a nursing school. Her dream came true, but at the school the head nun had bully her and even though Evie was top of her class the sister refused Evie her nursing pin.
As luck would have it her nursing skills were needed to help the marathon dancers. She had the challenge of curing the star dancer Zave sprained ankle. After she proved herself she got the job.
Zave does everything and anything to keep on dancing. He was abuse as a child and as luck would have it was taken in by Evie father, a famous dancer. Zave was trained by him to dance and they started a father and son dance routine. Unfortunately that didn’t last long once his idol fell in love and Zave was turned out.
The setting is in Galveston and Chicago, during the time of gangster and the depression. The narrator was fantastic and kept me listening for one more chapter. Was a different twist then what I expected and I throughly enjoyed it. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. I am voluntarily posting an honest review after reading an Advance Reader Copy of this story. #NetGalley #LastDanceontheStarlightPier

I thoroughly enjoyed this depression era book. The story centers around the protagonist Evie Devlin. She was raised in a Vaudeville environment. Her beloved father dies early and she is left to be raised by a narcissist mother and numerous so called uncles. Evie dreams of a better life as a nurse and sets out to capture her dream. Blended into the story is filled with gangsters, raids, FDR running for President, language and sexuality. Does Evie get her nursing pin? No spoilers here. The story is beautiful. The narration is done well.

Thank you #NetGalley, #MacMillanAudio, #St.MartinPress, #SarahBird and #CassandraCampbell for the advance copy.

3.5 stars

Remembrances of the movie, They Shoot Horses flicked through my mind listening to this one. It is a story of a young girl named Evie Grace Devlin trying to fend for herself in a most difficult world during the Depression. Evie did try to better herself to become something, to become a nurse, but after an even is revealed about her past, that dream goes crashing to the ground. To make a living she gets involved in the world of dance marathons., where much to her amazement she is thrust into a spotlight where she least want to be.

Along with her personal story, we are witness to the underworld of Galveston, Texas. As if the way in which she was raised by a cruel and malicious mother was not bad enough, Evie finds the evil in the world of the marathons that are controlled by the the underworld. Unfortunately, with her spirits low and seemingly depressed and deserted, she returns to her mother whom she left at seventeen. She doesn't find her mother but is able to find work as a nurse in the dance marathons in Houston, sometimes even substituting as a dancer. She makes some decisions that had me scratching her head and although I kept rooting for Evie, I had to question why she chose to do the things she did.

The interesting things I learned about the past in this story set in 1932, made this a tale that was intriguing. However, there was too much to it, and after awhile it became an exhausting listen. It was a good story but it needed to be shorter and more concise. I was amazed by what people were forced to do to earn a nickel to say alive. Sad but true, we needed a war to end this tragedy.

Thank you to Sarah Bird, Cassandra Bird, and NetGalley for the ability to listen to this story before publication which is on April 12, 2022.

I love this found family and coming of age story. The cast of characters were a wonderful addition to the story and kept the plot moving when it could have become stagnant.

It is a different coming of age story because this is an adult and you learn of her coming of age through memories and the memories of others. Told in various timelines and through different perspectives (although only one POV is narrating), the reader is transformed into the survival of a marathon-dance company.

I thought the friendships were well developed and there really were no details I thought were superfluous to the storyline. This is my first read by the author and I was pleasantly surprised at her writing style. Listening to the audio version, the narration was well done and I think it enhanced my “reading” experience.

I do not feel the synopsis of this book is accurate. There is so much more to this novel than Evie becoming a nurse, or just a dance company, or the family run empire of vice in Galveston. It really is about becoming the person you truly want to be and accepting being the cause of your own happiness and future.

I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martins Press, and McMillian Audio for providing me an advanced copy to share my humble thoughts and opinions.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to listen to an ARC of this book.
I originally asked Netgalley for a print copy. I tried a number of times to read it and couldn't get into it. So I asked for an audio version. I was unable to put it down. Listening to an audiobook is listening to a performance and somehow, this book is written for performance. It is described as a 'sweeping story.' And so it is. Gone With The Wind for the depression era. It has everything even the dust bowls though no one gets caught in one. It is the depression told from a point of view that isn't told nearly as much as the stories about surviving in the drought and the dust and the migration out to California. This is about the dances that had no end. The people who danced till it killed them, the fat cats who came to watch them and gawk as if at a cock fight, the money makers who put these things together. And the young woman who tells us her story as she tries, heart and soul, to rise out of poverty, an abusive childhood, falls in love and blames so much of what goes wrong in her life on herself..

As the personal story evolves, we also get history. Will FDR be the Democrat running for president? Who suffers and who doesn't suffer from the effects of the depression? I knew nothing about Galvaston, Texas - not even that it is an island.

I loved this book. Having it read to me was heavenly. I recommend it. Not all the reader's voices are great but I didn't care. This is a treat of a story.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of “Last Dance on the Starlight Pier” by Sarah Bird. I have to say that this was not what I expected. I normally would have stopped reading, but because I promised an honest review, I finished it.

I love historical fiction, but this book should have had written in the description that this is for the LGBTQ community. I know this subject is trying to get more normalized, but to me, I would like to know this topic is discussed in the books before I start reading. I also prefer to try and find books without any profanity, but again, this is something that the world is trying to normalize. This is not something I care for! I am sorry. I understand that this book is explaining what obstacles people were going through during the Great Depression, but did not expect this addition to the book.

I did enjoy reading about what the dance marathons were like during the 1930s as well as the discussions about the dust bowls and elections. I did give this 3 stars and not really because of the topic I stated above, but because the story took awhile to get going and could have been shorter. The advanced copy I received was an audio version and just seemed to take awhile to get into the bulk of the book.

Evie Devlin has been a Vaudeville performer all her young life and after her father’s death, her sadistic mother pushes Evie to do anything that will bring in money. When she’s old enough. she runs way to train as a nurse in Galveston, but even though she takes to medical training like a fish to water, she’s dealt a major blow on the day of her graduation. Feeling she has no choice, Evie heads back to Houston, and her mother. Luckily, she lands a nursing gig and gets caught up in the dance craze of the Great Depression (another way to make a little money). This is a look back on a rather bleak time in American history and Bird captures both the desolation and the small moments of joy to be found during the dark days of the Depression