This was amazing! I loved this remastered version of Alexis Daria’s debut novel. It was like Dancing with the Stars in the best way! I had a smile the entire time, can’t wait for more!

This was such a fun story! It reminded me of Dancing with the Stars in book form! Gina is a professional Latina dancer who has big dreams to win her show and hopefully make it to Broadway. She is paired with an Alaskan Viking with no dance experience who’s family lives in the middle of nowhere and are survivalists. These two couldn’t be anymore opposite. Gina is anti hooking up with dance partners but the chemistry between these two are off the charts! ⁣
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It’s so fun to imagine what dances they’re doing, the outfits they are wearing while dancing and just their energy as partners throughout. These two brought their best selves out for each other and had such growth with each other.⁣
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This was Daria’a first debut novel but is being republished by St Martins and is so worth the read!⁣
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I really enjoyed this one!⁣
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From the first words to the last, Gina and Stone danced their way straight to my heart.

Gina is a professional dancer starting her fourth season on The Dance Off and she really wants to win. The big, hunky star of a survivalist Alaskan wilderness show is a far cry from the figure skating partner she had envisioned. Stone reluctantly agrees to participate in the dance competition to give his family’s reality show a boost and to earn extra money to help pay for his mother’s medical bills. Gina is very conscious of her image on the show and the last thing she wants or needs is to fake a romance for ratings and votes. But while she might get out of the showmance, she may not be able to escape the very real one happening right under nose.

I couldn’t put it down. No really, I think I finished it in one day. Gina and Stone had intense chemistry on and off the dance floor. I loved the vivid descriptions of their rehearsals and the different dances. Their fellow performers and family members were all interesting, fleshed-out characters. Stone’s transformation from silent and mysterious to confident and determined was truly well done. I think the author also captured the harsh reality of reality TV, or at least, it made sense to me.

I can highly recommend this book if you like steamy contemporary romance.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Give me allllll the books based on reality tv, please! This Dancing With the Stars based romance with a guest appearance from a J-Lo lookalike was a lot of fun!

Since this is a print version of a novel the author wrote 6 years ago, I wasn't sure how good the quality of the writing would be. In the beginning, the author explained how some changes were made and I could definitely tell where modern things were added, but I didn't mind them. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the descriptions and overall writing style.

So what kept this from being a 5 star read? The characterization for sure. We're given brief mentions of the character's backgrounds, but they aren't fully fleshed out and it needed that extra something to get me invested.

Also, the MMC is a very attractive man and there's one character who continually grabs him inappropriately. Like full on SA's him. It's passed off as "you aren't supposed to like that character anyway, so of course they can do that" and there are never any consequences. I disliked that.

Probably the most damning thing for this book was the third act breakup. I don't enjoy those as a rule, but this one fell into the typical cliché of: I did something for your own good but lied to you to do it so we're going to break up until you realize I did it for your own good... but I still lied to you! I hate that.

Was it fun? Yes. Will I read it again? No.

I was given an e-ARC by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

What a fun book! I thoroughly enjoyed this super cute and sexy romance from Alexis Daria. The chemistry between Stone and Gina was blazing, and I thought the story was exceptionally well written. If you love dancing or reality dance shows, I highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and SMP for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

this was so much fun, i was giggling and kicking my feet the whole time, stone and gina are just so perfect i adore them

thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review

So happy to have read this updated version of Take The Lead. I didn't read the first version, so for me this is the original. I loved Stone and Gina, their chemistry was off-the-charts and I really like the insight into reality television and showbizz.
Gina is a choreographer on a dance competition show and she's assigned Stone as her celebrity partner. There are definitely insta-love vibes as they both feel an immediate attraction.
The producers want them to have a showmance which Gina refuses to do. She presents the perspective of being a woman of color in Hollywood because she's Puerto Rican and she's worried about being labelled as the "sexy Latina" and that the audience won't vote for her that way and that Hollywood would typecast.
Stone is also a reality TV star. His family does a survivalist show in Alaska.
I enjoyed reading Stone and Gina's journey to finding love and figuring out how they can be together while still being true to themselves and their dreams. I did have a few issues, which is why I rated the book four stars and not five stars. His name is Stone, and try as I might, I couldn't take it seriously. Also, the cover doesn't show it, but there is a massive height difference between them which I think would have made dancing and "eye gazing" difficult. Gina should have had a constant crick in the neck. Also, also, this is my personal opinion but I can't with the miscommunication trope.
Overall, it was a great and fun read with lots of chemistry between the characters.

I read "Take the Lead" by Alexis Daria on NetGalley. As a fan of Dancing with the Stars, this book made me think of that. The main characters, Gina, a professional dancer on the show The Dance Off, and Stone, a reality TV star on a show based in Alaska, become partners on the show. Gina needs to win the show...she has been told if not she may lose her job. The producers try to set them up for a showmance, but unknown to them, Gina & Stone are immensely attracted to each other. This was a fun story to read.

4.5 stars rounded up

What a delightful romance! I requested Take the Lead because a romance set on a show similar to Dancing With the Stars sounded like fun, but this offers so much more. The hero and heroine are both nuanced, fleshed out characters with their own arcs of growth, the relationship is both sexy and romantic, AND it's a novel tackling the stereotyping of Latine people in the media as sexy and promiscuous. I'm so impressed this was originally Daria's debut novel.

Gina Morales is a talented dancer and choreographer who has spent her career fighting against stereotypes of who she is. Four seasons into The Dance Off, she wants to finally win and prove herself in a difficult industry. She is paired with Stone- a burly man from Alaska where his family has a survivalist reality TV show. But there's a lot more going on with his life that you see on the surface. And of course, producers want Gina and Stone to stage a "showmance" for views, which Gina absolutely refuses to do. But secretly, they can't resist the growing friendship and crackling chemistry between them.

This was an excellent book and a great example of what romance, even light and fun romance, is capable of when done well. I felt the lack of communicating through problems at the end dragged out a tad too long, but my complaints are very minor. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

A reality dance show with a romantic twist. A cute read with some spice, buf I just found that this setting didn't entice me as much as I would have liked and probably set myself up with an unrealistic expectation. It just became a reality show mashup with a slightly predictable storyline.
Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this book and give my honest opinion.

Honestly was not sure what to expect with this book. I had read one book by alexis daria and was not a fan but I wanted to try again because the cover and description of the book. I am really glad I decided to try again because I really enjoyed this book and the romance had me kicking my feet in the air.

Super fun read. Lighthearted, yet emotional, with awesome chemistry and spice. I loved Gina and Stone together. The reality dancing competition was so much fun to read about, and these two were perfect together. *I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This read was a fun and flirty dance competition romance. I loved that this friends to lovers story included some juicy drama and gossip and spicy moments. If you are a fan of reality tv shows, than this a read for you.

This is a fun and steamy read! Set on a fake version of a certain dancing competition show, the story follows a set of partners who have more than a little chemistry. I loved how strong and ambitious Gina is. She knows her mind and how to play the game of reality TV while staying true to her deep values. Stone is a delightful hero, closed off, but not overly so. There are oh so many sparks between the two leads and I loved it. I’m so glad this got reissued and I could read it!

Alexis Daria is one of my comfort read romance authors. I've read her newest series and adored it and was so excited to see that her first series was getting re-released. I'd tried to access this before but was unable to get a first edition from my library.

I would recommend this romance to fans of Dancing with the Stars, Dirty Dancing, etc. Gina and Stone take the DWTS setting and their romance flourishes amidst the pressures of stardom, life, and being themselves. This novel was steamy and the perfect read for Valentine's Day. I could definitely tell that this was Daria's debut and even with a re-release, there were some phrases during the spicier scenes that could have used an edit. All in all this was enjoyable and fun and exactly what I needed to get out of a book slump.

This was a fun and steamy book set in the sparkly ballroom of a celebrity dancing reality show.
The detailed descriptions of the choreography, the performances, the costumes, and of course, the manipulative production packages were fantastic. I really liked Stone and Gina separately and together. The ensemble of dancers and family members was also solid.

Since this is a re-release, I'm very much looking forward to the other books in the series.

*I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher and I am required to disclose that in my review in compliance with federal law.

I grabbed this book on NetGalley because of the cover. It was so extremely pretty and I couldn't resist.

However, I should have read the synopsis first. When I got into the story and realized that we are basing the entire plot around a show The Dance Off - which is basically Dancing with the Stars I was inwardly cringing. My mom used to make me to watch this show with her and I just do NOT enjoy it. But I was determined to give this book a chance.

This story is set on a reality TV show and Gina is the professional dancer who has been on the show for 14 seasons but has never made it to the finals. And she needs to win to keep her job, dang it!

She's paired with Stone, an Alaskan mountain of a man, who is GIANT. Wow, so original. He is also in a reality show with his whole family. So 2 different kind of reality show stars. This is really not my thing, deep breath, we are going to give it a chance.

I liked both Gina and Stone--individually and together. I really liked Stone and his quiet, generous, loyal personality. Gina was a take-no-prisoners kind of character but she grew on me. The characters had great chemistry, and them getting together in the story felt like a natural progression. However the third act conflict had me shaking my head. Both characters acted incredibly out-of-character. Stone, who is normally so understanding and patient, acted against Gina’s wishes. When she found out, she reacted so bitterly despite never lashing out verbally toward others when they messed up.

Overall, this was enjoyable enough, but I don't feel like it will stick with me.

I will have to check out the library book for this sometime because the date expired on my Kobo. Thank you for the chance to read and review.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and Alexis Daria for an arc copy in exchange for an honest review.

From page one I was hooked. The characters sprang to life on the page and I was sucked into their story from there. It was so fun and fresh and sexy it genuinely was a blast reading. The chemistry between the two characters, all the dance terminology and moments made my heart sing. Alexis is an incredible storyteller and her books fill this void in my heart I hadn’t realized was there. The Latina representation also is incredible and brings me so much joy :)

If you’re a fan of Dancing with the Stars, this book is for you! It follows Gina, a dance pro, and Stone, star of an Alaskan wilderness show, as they pair up in a celebrity dance competition.

The book was a bit slow for me to get into as it didn’t feel like they had a lot of chemistry and were only relying on instant attraction. The pair grew on me over time as they developed a deeper connection and got more vulnerable with one another.

Full of steamy scenes and the drama of meddling producers on reality tv, this was a fun read overall.

Thanks St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my copy!