Watch Her Fall

​Author: Erin Kelly
Published by: Hodder Books
Pages: 390
Format: Paperback
My Rating ★★★★

I watched her rise.
 
Ava has devoted her life to being the best at what she does. Now she’s at the top, she has the world at her feet.
 
I tracked her every move.
 
Except, the feeling of success isn’t what Ava expected. She’s lonely and paranoid – and terrified. Because someone is watching her. A rival who wants what she has and is prepared to kill to get it.

  
My thoughts:
 
Swan Lake is about to open at the London Russian Ballet Theatre, run by Nikolai Kirilov who tyrannically instils rigorous Russian technique into the dancers in his company. Taking the lead role of Odette and Odile is Nikolai’s daughter, Ava Kirilova. 
 
The storyline cleverly mirrors the ballet in the evolving twists and turns throughout this well-written thriller. The Acts and Interludes are told from several perspectives, with the different narratives taking the storytelling into unexpected directions. 
 
It’s a clever, intense, dark and a very compelling read. I loved the premise and the compelling world of the ballet company, with its competitive and overwhelming mental and physical pressures. With the impending performance of Swan Lake fast approaching, readers are introduced to a range of characters and a sequence of surprise twists.
 
The plot focuses on the ballet, Swan Lake, and Ava Kirilova, its star who has been training her whole life for the much-coveted dual role of Odette and Odile. Since a young age, her father, the Russian ballet master, Nikolai, has been guiding and transforming her to become his masterpiece. 
 
However, the story is not just set on stage. The author intricately weaves another thread into this tale. That of the dangers faced by those people who are forced to live undercover. Those who have left everything that they love to find a new life but have only discovered more pain and heartache. 
 
As opening night approaches and her father's criticism increases, Ava grows more and more paranoid that someone is plotting against her and will cause her father to replace her with one of her understudies. Coincidences begin building up that seem to validate Ava's paranoia. Then an opening night injury and its aftermath changes Ava's life forever.
 
While this book is full of surprising twists and turns, it moves very slowly. Each chapter is a character study. I got a little confused with some of the changes in perspective in the middle of the story, but as the book goes on everything starts to fall into place. It's very cleverly written, and the twists took me by surprise. The reader is inside the character's heads, experiencing the events through their eyes only. Swan Lake serves as a backdrop to the events of the story. The plot is a thrilling and cinematic story of control, deceit and passion. It's a story that the reader must invest heavily in, filled to the brim with layers on intrigue, ambition, greed, jealousy and loss. That said, there are also some glaring implausibilities: that a young ballerina in a famous London company about to go on an international tour doesn't have a phone or understand what data is, doesn't have a bank account and so on. It's implausible enough not to guess but manages to fall just on the right side of realism. 
 
All in all, I found this a fun and entertaining page-turner. Watch Her Fall is a gripping and imaginative read. 
 
Overall reaction: