Dance with your Heart (Paperback or Softback)

Ballet, dance, adventure, mystery, magic, fantasy and a touch of first-love romance combine in this spellbinding series for preteens, tweens and teens.

If you think this is your regular ballet or urban fantasy book, think again!

13-year-old Gemma James is just your average girl with anything-but-average dreams of being a professional ballet dancer. She attends the prestigious SA Ballet Academy – an eerie old ballet school bursting with secrets...and where nothing is quite what it seems.

Now the Grade 7s at the academy are putting on a performance of the enchanting ballet Giselle, and Gemma is determined to get a lead role.

But the discovery of a 100-year-old mystery in the depths of the old academy building one moonlit night, stiff competition from the other teen dancers, and the constant harassment of Super Snob and star performer, Aimee Atherton, all threaten to derail Gemma’s chances.

Plus cute new boy Ethan Blake has just transferred to the academy from a top London ballet school, and he’s complicating things even further.

Will Gemma get her chance to dance?

Readers will fall in love with sassy Gemma and her alluring sense of adventure, as well as best friends Marley Moon and Dineo as they get to grips with life in this unusual ballet school with its enchanting setting and larger-than-life characters.

Dance with your Heart is the first book in the delightful SA Ballet Academy series of fantasy dance and ballet books for girls.

“As a hardened ballet teacher of many years of back-breaking work in my beloved profession, I fell in love with the characters in DANCE WITH YOUR HEART. An extremely enjoyable read, it is also fun and catches with great wit, the foibles of both fellow pupils and teachers. This is a great book for parents and all ages of dancers to read – for those of us for whom the magic of dance will always continue.”

“I read the first book, DANCE WITH YOUR HEART. My daughter Megan and myself couldn't wait to read the book, we both enjoyed it so much. It kept us captivated. Thank you Bronwyn for a wonderful book. Looking forward to the next one!”

“I absolutely adored DANCE WITH YOUR HEART. I really enjoyed the story and all the characters! I even felt different in my first dance class after reading it! I can't wait for the next one!"

“When I read DANCE WITH YOUR HEART I felt as though I'd been granted access to a world filled with magic and dance, where anything was possible. I LOVED this novel. Gemma had me wishing I was a ballerina and attending a ballet academy from page one; she showed me the excitement and struggles dancers face from beautiful costumes, long lasting friendships and even bleeding toes! With characters that dived out of the novel and pirouetted across my room, it was easy to imagine them as my best friends, rather than characters in a book. They were easy to love and oh-so real. All I wanted to do was step out of my room and visit Gemma on stage or, have a conversation with Ethan or burn Aimee to the ground because I hated her. I loved the journey the group took together and can't wait to see what else they discover at SABA!”

"My 14-year-old daughter loved this book and says it has a real story – it is not just a little girl’s book about tutus and tiaras. There’s a ghost called Emily and a cute boy too…"

Stories of magic and mystery, faeries and fantasy – that’s what I was raised on. And what I believe fuelled my passion for writing stories that (I hope) capture my readers’ imagination and whisk you away to wonderfully whimsical places.

Dance with your Heart is my first book. An urban fantasy novel, the story is set in a fictitious Johannesburg ballet school, the prestigious SA Ballet Academy.

The story is inspired by my own experiences as a young dancer.

Like the characters in the SA Ballet Academy series, I also had dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer.

I studied the Cecchetti method as a child, reaching the advanced level, and danced for the Johannesburg Youth Ballet for two years between 1993 and 1994 where I danced in Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

I gave up ballet in Grade 11 (something I wish I had never done! Psst…if you’re a dancer, don’t give up!)

When not lost in thought dreaming up new plotlines involving sassy Gemma, marvellous Marley, determined Dineo, funnyman Mitch and dreamy Ethan, I run my own freelance writing and editing business from my home in the beautiful Garden Route region of South Africa.

I studied journalism and previously worked for Now Media and Systems Publishers as a journalist, and SABC Radio and Primedia Broadcasting as a current affairs radio producer.

I am married and live with my husband Miles, three sons Cayden, Cullum and Finn, and our crazy dogs Lola, Grayson and Moxie.