adorable, sexy and oh so steamy ! a truly unique and fun twist on an already popular genre. This was so fun to dive into.

I love a flirty read! Sparks sure did fly in this fun romance! Get ready for some heat. Love love!

I love how the characters built and the story was just perfect. Highly recommend!!

This is a really cute rude! it follows the main characters Archer and Lynn which are are roommates when Archer is accepted at Shady Queens Cabaret for the summer where he meets Lynn. be prepared to go on a roller coaster of emotions! reminds me of a written version of DWTS and a mix of Dirty Dancing!! you won't be disappointed

Fun! Sweet gay male romance about dancers at a gay lodge in the Poconos. I’d love to visit Shady Queens now that I’m an old queer, but in my younger days I would have thrilled to be one of the crew there. This book fulfills all my daydreams of what it might be like to work as entertainment staff at such a resort. I recommend it!

I received an electronic ARC of this novel from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Dirty Dancing x adult summer camp vibes
Achillean adult romance (with leads in their late 20s)
Fan x professional dancer romance
A summer working as dancers in the Catskills
Forced proximity / workplace romance
Brooding famous / renowned dancer with mysterious past and a big fish in this gig!!!
Fun cast of characters beyond the main characters
Archer (our main character) has been following his dreams in NYC of becoming a dancer at 27 years old, despite what his parents and anyone else says
Sweet, cozy romance full of pining and tender moments!

Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity and Alcohol

I adored this book. The chemistry between archer and Mateo shone through the pages. Caleb really irritated me the entire time. as a huge musical theatre person myself, I loved getting lost in this world. With that being said, I felt the amount of drama that took place in this book was a tad too much. It could have been dialed back a bit and still told a great story. That’s the only reason I rated it a 3

This book was super sweet. It is definitely a slow burn romance and I loved to follow their journey of falling in love. I love finding little LGBTQ+ gems and this one is one of them. Only thing I did not like the emotional cheating or the transphobia so that definitely affected my rating.

I received a copy of flirty dancing by Jennifer Moffatt for free for review on net gallery. All opinions and thoughts written here are my own. I received no compensation whatsoever for this review.

All I can say is wow. Flirty dancing by Jennifer Moffatt was a thoroughly enjoyable book. The story moved along at a nice pace, almost like a dance within itself. And even though I don't have any experience in dance myself, I could easily see the pictures you painted in my mind of the characters movements as well as their feelings. I got a little confused once with some of the dance terms, but that was fixed with a little bit of googling. I also thoroughly appreciated the romance in this story that was sweet without being vulgar in any way. As an ally of lbgtq plus, I love that you were able to do that. I very much appreciated. The depth of the characters. Sometimes while reading a book I can think of the characters as my friends. This was also true with this one and I hope she chooses to continue the story somehow because I almost didn't want the book to end.
Thank you so much For this this charming piece of work..

Such a sweet book! a quick read too. if you love Dirty Dancing, Dancing with the Stars, or even just DRAMA this is the book for you. the cast of characters gets a little messy with everyone living and working together at a summer camp. but in the end everyone has their happy ending. i would say this book was low on spice, mostly fade to black. but the banter, and slow burn lead up with very rewarding! I think the author did a great job of drawing me into the story and i could really picture the setting and being there with all the characters. this was a fun read and i recommend if you are looking for a sweet romance!

I don't know why but a romance about two dancers makes the story even hotter. Archer and Mateo are great characters and I really felt like I was immersed in the story. It is a cute slow burn that I enjoyed all the way through.

This was a cute read! As a huge fan of Dirty Dancing and DWTS, I adored the premise so much, and Moffat does a great job of writing characters you want to root for. I loved all the Broadway references and it was just so cozy overall (even with all the behind-the-scenes drama). I devoured it in one day!

Archer Read, a 27 year old aspiring dancer, is down on his luck when he auditions for a part with Shady Queens, an LGTBQ dance resort in the Catskills. When he gets the part, he's not expecting much -- so imagine his luck when the Broadway dancer he's been crushing on for years is leading the troupe. After a fallout with his Broadway castmates sidelined Mateo Dixon, he's just hoping to make this show the best it's ever been, and to avoid any more drama. Dealing with Archer Read -- and a summer's worth of drunken hijinks and hookups -- is so not on Mateo's list. But despite everything, and the show falling apart around them, Archer and Mateo start falling for each other.

I really liked both Archer and Mateo, and I also liked the supporting cast as well. Their board game nights made me want to party right alongside them, and I feel like Moffatt truly has a talent for bringing these moments to life. Becky, the B-Boys, and Caleb were a fun bunch. My one critique is (and I know I should've signed up for this -- it was literally in the blurb) that I wish Archer's will-they-won't-they hookup with Caleb took more of a backstage. So much of the book is spent on him and Caleb, and barely any on Mateo, which is such a shame because Archer and Mateo have amazing chemistry. The end provided much more of the Archer/Mateo moments I'd been yearning for. It didn't detract much from my enjoyment, though, because I really did find it so cozy and fun. Moffatt absolutely nails the dance troupe atmosphere, and I feel like any fan of dance and romance will adore this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's, and Jennifer Moffatt for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This book is so sweet and so fun! Archer is a dancer who recently quit his day job on Ohio and moved to New York City to fulfill his dream of dancing on Broadway. He books a job for the summer dancing at an LGBTQ+ resort in the Catskills, alongside Mateo, a former Broadway leading man who has been lying low for 5 years. Their romance is slow burn and the cast of characters in this story is a real treat.

I work in theater and know too much about how productions work (even non-union dance revues) so some of those elements didn’t work as well for me personally. But as a huge fan of Dirty Dancing and theater gossip, it won me over where it counts.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

Thank you to St Martin's Press for this eARC! As a very big lover of Dirty Dancing this was an absolute delight of a read. I want to see Archer and Mateo in their Latin night dance, because I can absolutely feel the heat from their eyes coming through the page. And Eileen my love I want to drink her tea and listen to her stories all day long. This was a nice balance of characters making mistakes and getting smacked by them and then doing the work to earn their way back from it. A really fun read for sure.

This book was good, but not great. I enjoyed it as a romance, but I had quite a few issues with it and several moments where I wanted to stop reading. First of all, I despise emotional cheating, and Archer's relationship with Caleb was *plagued* with it. Not to mention the actual cheating with everyone else. It felt like a confusingly messy and tangled web of gay cheaters, which isn't a great portrayal. Additionally, the side plot about the trans actor felt out of place and seemingly used the concept of transphobia to further the plot. I understand that romances usually like to wrap things up all nice and neat, but this book seemed to gloss over a lot of the side plots that I think could have been developed a lot further. I would have loved to see more of Archer, Mateo, and Eileen and how their relationship progresses. Additionally, I wish there was more time spent developing Betty as a character. Overall, this was a good and easy read, but not a phenomenal success.

I received an email from SMP offering this ARC to me and I couldn’t say no! This is the first book that I’ve read with dancing so I was pretty excited to read something new to me! I’m a huge Dirty Dancing fan so the title and cover really appealed to me! 😍

The characters in this book were just amazing and the chemistry was perfection. I’m a sucker for a good angsty slow burn and this book just checked all the boxes that I typically look for. This is my first book by this author and I’m really interested to read more!

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

title: Flirty Dancing

author: Jennifer Moffatt

publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

publication date: May 27, 2025

pages: 336

peppers: 2 (on this scale)

warnings: drinking alcohol to excess, multiple partners, vomit, death parents (earlier)

summary: Archer has been striking out at dance auditions in NYC for long enough that he's thrilled to get a summer gig dancing at a LGBTQIA+ resort in the Catskills. When he arrives for rehearsal, he's shocked to find his teen crush Mateo, a dancer who was a big deal on Broadway until he got blacklisted for bad behavior. Turns out, Mateo is sort of hotter than ever and sort of a jerk.

tropes:

Dirty Dancing callbacks
forced proximity
another guy is interested
sort of his boss

what I liked: Archer and Mateo's hot dance scenes

what I didn’t like: Archer spends most of the story with Caleb, who's not very nice to Mateo.

overall rating: 4 (of 5 stars)

This was so messy and fun! Imagine if we saw the inner workings of the dance troupe at a summer retreat?? That’s this. The group of queer dancers gets SO MESSY. It was fun to read and will be a great summer addition to your summer TBR. Or request the ARC and take mental vacation now! Thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the ARC.

This is a really cute book about dancing and relationships. Archer and Lynn are roommates when Archer is accepted into a dancing troupe at Shady Queens Cabaret for the summer. He's delighted as he's never gotten a part he really wanted and this is an opportunity to learn from the best! And when he arrives he sees the famous Mateo who he's had a crush on since childhood so now he's really nervous. But soon he settles in and he flirts with Caleb and talks to Lynn who has dreams of her own. But as we know, things can change in a heartbeat...so be prepared!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this book!

What a great book! This was a first for me by this author and I really enjoyed her writing style! I will definitely be reading more books by her. I enjoyed the plot and the characters in this book. They worked so well together! I had a hard time putting this book down.