This book is a very welcome distraction in the high-tech, fast-paced world we live in and is a wonderfully poignant debut from the author. Anton du Beke, best known to British audiences as a professional dancer on television's Strictly Come Dancing has created a wonderful world where high society and the working class meet within the confines of a glamorous hotel in 1930s London. The characters of both genders are well-developed and rounded, they are believable and human. They say to write about what you know, and du Beke has taken this to heart by centring the story around dance and the hotel's captivating ballroom, showing the glitz and glamour of the patrons of the ballroom, as well as the backstage, less glamorous, existence of the hotel workers who clean the ballroom and are looked down as lesser beings by the upper classes. It truly is an enchanting novel, showing the struggles and the joys of the interwar years through the eyes of a few select characters who dream big and live small.