Born to Dance - Hardcover

June Tate was born in Southampton and spent the early years of her childhood in the Cotswolds. After leaving school she became a hairdresser on cruise ships the Queen Mary and the Mauritania, meeting many Hollywood film stars and VIPs on her travels. After her marriage to an airline pilot, she lived in Sussex and Hampshire before moving to Estoril in Portugal.

Bonny Burton lives to dance, and when she auditions for her first job in a chorus line, she's thrilled not only to be hired but also to make a new friend, Shirley, and to catch the eye of the handsome and talented producer, Rob Andrews. Soon Rob and Bonny are scouted by one of London's premier West End agents, and their Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers dance number attracts fame and romance in the person of charming Irish boxing champion Mickey O'Halleran. Tate's frothy historical revisits familiar tropes: the hardworking 18-year-old ingenue with a heart of gold, the Southhampton setting, the perceived conflict between career and romance. The characters' sensibilities seem anachronistic for 1934, especially regarding premarital relations, but Tate cleverly incorporates the theater, boxing, and the criminal underworld into Bonny's glorious adventure as the toast of English entertainment during an age of spectacular productions. --Booklist, February 1st, 2011