The story is incredibly steamy, but also really fun and engaging with its reality TV "behind the scenes". Great characters and connection between the leads.

As someone who watches and loves DWTS, put together with my like of the worlds of Alexis Daria, I knew I’d enjoy Take The Lead.

It moved quickly, which I loved because it felt like I was reading faster than I really was.

Stone was so loveable. Quiet and a little unsure but a fierce protector with BIG love.

A fun fluffy romance that I throughly enjoyed!

This book was great. I really enjoyed it. The storyline could have used a bit more and then it would have been a full 5 stars for me!

Stone joins the Dance Off Reality show to help pay for his mother's hip surgery. He is teamed up with his partner Gina, who has been on the show for four seasons. As things start to heat up both on and off the dance show, can they keep their feelings to themselves or will the viewer audience also be in on it? This is a fun story of being on a reality TV show and what can happen behind the scenes. I look forward to reading the next book in the series. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Not a fan. I think sadly after a few misses I’ll have to be done with this author. This books not for me.

Ms Daria is a new-to-me author, so I didn't know what to expect when I picked this up. I was very pleasantly surprised and found the book to be very enjoyable and entertaining. The story is set against the backdrop of a reality dance show. Gina's heart and soul is dancing, and she's been trying for four seasons to make it big through The Dance Off, but with no luck. She thinks this time her new partner, Stone, will be her ticket to success. Stone is the shy, quiet type, and doesn't like being in the limelight, but he'll do whatever he needs to for his family. Turns out they have been set up to have an onscreen romance. Neither is happy about the deception, but their growing attraction makes it harder to keep their feelings from turning into something real.
This was a light and fun romance with likable and interesting characters and I had a nice time reading it. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for providing a complimentary copy. This is my voluntary and honest review.

This was Dancing with the Stars in a book. If you love that show or if you love ballroom dance you will love this book!

My only critique is that third act break up. I usually don't mind it, but this one was kind of like come on really, are we really that mad over that?

Otherwise, it was a great book! I thought Stone was such a sweet lumberjack of a book boyfriend. I recommend.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Alexis Daria for the ARC.

Take the Lead was such a fun read! I have loved Alexis Daria's other books, so I was excited for this one.

The book's set up is very much like Dancing With the Stars, but add in a romance between the female pro dance and male star. This book is super steamy with lots of sexy time.

The author did a great job bringing Stone and Gina's romance to life. Both characters, despite their humanizing flaws, are likeable, and readers will root for their relationship. Their journey was at times bumpy, but the ups and downs made it feel real and believable.

This is a rerelease with some changes including a new cover, which I adore by the way. I never read the original so I'm not too sure on the changes that were made but I really enjoyed this. There were a few times I was a little annoyed by the pettiness that sometimes came off immature but overall, it was great. I fell in love with Alexis Daria's Primas of Power series and had to read Take the Lead. This was the perfect book for my romance & reality competition loving heart. Stone was the tall muscular lead that's as soft as a button that I love, and Gina is a BAB and I love when the woman lead is in charge and taking care of business.

- IR Romance (Puerto Rican woman + white man)
- a little spicy
- dance competition / reality tv
- opposites attract
- forced proximity
- dual pov
- great side characters

3.5 stars!

I did enjoy this book, and I loved the ending (and Stone, let's be honest), but I feel like it's definitely more for people who enjoy reality tv/dance competition shows. The plot was very heavily focused on that aspect of it, and I really wanted more character interactions and growth. So while I'm glad I read it so I could recommend it to specific people that I think it will work for, it wasn't anything super outstanding for me. But I would absolutely read more by Alexis Daria, though!

When it comes to reality television-based romances, Take the Lead is a fun one. I like that it strays from the typical Bachelor inspired plot and instead uses a Dancing with the Stars type show as its set up. I personally love when the professionals and stars fall for each other on the show, so this felt perfect for me. Our main characters are Stone, a reality star known for his show about a family living in the Alaskan wilderness and GIna, a dancer with big dreams. Both are so likable, but I feel I understood Gina and her motivations a little more. Their chemistry is intense and immediate, and dance is a great way to build their tension. There's a couple swoon worthy moments on the dancefloor, for sure. Despite this, I wish we saw them connect more as people. They wanted super different things in life, and were just so different. Sure they were great dance partners and the steamy scenes were undeniably good, but how do they connect outside of that? I wanted more of them connecting as people and less of them dancing together.

That being said, that competition aspect was fun. It kept me hooked and allowed for the introduction of a great cast of supporting characters. There's a ton of companion book potential here. I think the problem was that I was more into the competition than I was the romance. I wish it was balanced more, but ultimately the book was super fun and I'm glad I finally read something by this author. It is definitely an adult romance, so be aware of that.

A Dancing With the Stars-esque romance between a professional dancer and a reality show star. There is high heat in this steamy romance and I found myself rooting for the characters throughout the book.

Sincere thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

There were some cute moments but overall this book wasn't for me. This book had a fun Dancing with the Stars-like plot but the story as a whole fell flat. I disliked some of the choices the FMC made, especially near the end, and thought the subplot with Stone and his family was boring and overplayed.

Gina has worked her butt off to get where she is on Dance it Off without falling to the stereotype of the sexy Latina and she will not allow anyone to get in her way of her career. Rules are rules to protect herself.

Stone has been in the spotlight unwillingly on his family’s reality show, Living Wild but when the show is threatened with cancellation he goes on the dance competition show to win the prize money for his mom’s hip replacement she just had.

Between them the chemistry is INSTANT but with so much in their way and cameras watching their every move, do they have any hope?

This was…..fine. I didn’t like the immaturity of the main characters nor the fact that it was just a bunch of lies spin around a dance competition. Just a meh book overall.

⭐⭐⭐.5

𝘼 𝙛𝙪𝙣, 𝙨𝙚𝙭𝙮 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙩 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬.

📍 Read if you like:
• Diverse Romances
• Opposites Attract
• Dual POV
• Forced Proximity
• Reality TV
• Dancing With The Stars

Take The Lead is my second book from this author and I just love how diverse the characters are, especially Gina in this one. I loved the whole trope of this reality show called “𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘖𝘧𝘧” - think Dancing With The Stars.

I actually enjoyed the characters in this one, some side characters also added so much to the story - they made it more interesting.

I liked the chemistry between Gina and Stone. They were definitely so different from each other, but they made a great match. Stone was probably my favorite character in the book, I think he was written perfectly. I was also a huge fan of the short chapters with dual pov.

The only issue I really had with the book was that at times it did get a bit repetitive. I also feel like there were some moments where the miscommunication occurred. I believe there’s a second book in the series, but I really hope we can get a story for each of the dance partners. Overall, I enjoyed this book, for the most part, the diversity was top-notch in this romance. I would highly recommend checking out this author if you haven’t yet.

Thank you St. Martin’s Griffin and NetGalley for the gifted book in exchange for my honest review, all thoughts are my own!

Gina Morales has a lot of thoughts along with big dreams. She has been a professional dancer on Dance Off for 4 seasons but has never made the finals. That's the first dream she wants to make a reality - lift the Dance Off trophy. After that, there's Broadway and the rest of the entertainment industry. She knows she only has a finite amount of time to make it happen, so nothing can distract her. Not even her hunky partner -- no matter how handsome and nice he really is. She can make it through this competition with little to no distractions, right? She IS a professional...

Take The Lead was everything you could want and expect from such a story. Fun dialogue and encounters, great chemistry and just the right level of spicy. The dance show and rehearsal parts felt accurate too, which was appreciated, though it has been a while since I watched Dancing with the Stars. I loved the interactions between the characters, both the good and the bad. I really loved how passionate Stone was about everything, especially Alaska. The descriptions of the wilderness were gorgeous and contrasted perfectly with the descriptions of their time in the big cities (New York and Los Angeles). If you're looking for a fun, easy read that is sweet and fun, this is for you!

Dancing with the stars. I wanted to feel sucked into the growing intensity of their relationship but I just didn’t connect. Lots of secrets and very opposite personalities. The plot and the characters lacked depth BUT the steam was there!

If you’re a fan of Dancing With the Stars and like romance novels this is the book for you.

I am a fan of the show and I really enjoyed having a reality TV show as the backdrop for a romance. It was super interesting to see behind the scenes and I thought the author did a great job at portraying that aspect. Gina and Stone had great chemistry instantly, there’s something so sexy and intimate about ballroom dance and their dance scenes were almost as hot as the actual sex scenes. Despite the reality tv setting this still had lots of depth too with Gina dealing with being a woman of color in a brutal industry. This was actually the authors debut back in 2017 and it’s being re-released with a new cover cartoonesque cover, I actually think it looks better than the original!

Loved this book!

"You light me up. You helped me remember who I was before, and see clearly who I am now and who I want to be."

Gina and Stone were fantastic together. Both dealing with unwanted expectations and trying to break free from the molds the public put them in, they find comfort and so much more with each other.

Gina Morales is determined to find true fame but after four seasons on The Dance Off she’s yet to make the finals. That could change this season though, thanks to her new partner, an attractive survivalist from an Alaskan wilderness reality show. It seems Stone Nielson will be her shoe-in for the trophy, but that hope comes crashing down when it becomes clear that the producers are setting them up for an on-camera romance.

Stone is less than thrilled to be joining this competition, but his family needs the money so he’s willing to do it for them, even as he fears accidentally revealing their secret. The whirlwind of life in Los Angeles has him longing for the quiet stillness of Alaska, but Stone can’t escape his growing attachment to Gina. Neither is interested in faking a relationship for the cameras, but the fiery chemistry between them is all too real.

With their continued success in the competition, the cameras do catch on to that inevitable chemistry and the spotlight threatens to derail them, leaving both Gina and Stone to reevaluate their priorities.

I started off really liking both the heroine and hero of this story. They started off feeling impossible from the get-go and that was frustrating, but it did set the stage for a ton of great character growth. Stone was this gruff mountain man, the real strong, silent type. As the book went on, we got a lot of his inner monologue and in an excellent bit of character development he realized he didn’t want to fit himself into the mold as he’d been typecast. We really saw him start to come into his own as the person he wanted to be, a person who is allowed to have feelings and whose feelings are valid. It’s this element that made me so annoyed with Gina. I started out really liking her but ultimately, she was only about herself and her image and she just got to be too much. Too much angst, too much complaining, too much stubborn refusal to see anyone’s side but her own. Yes, Stone made an error in judgment, but it was ultimately a minor mistake. She put way too much focus on keeping him a secret, making him feel boxed into a role just like his family had. Gina, and therefore the book itself, was completely focused on Stone’s mistake and not her part in that little debacle, highlighting only her feelings and assumptions on how this would affect her and not caring about Stone’s feelings at all. Almost as if, once again, he’s not meant to have feelings. That was not cool, especially when Stone called her out on invalidating his feelings and she still didn’t make any changes. It’s nothing she hadn’t done in other parts of the book but still, I had come to expect more of her. I shouldn’t have been surprised, however, since when Stone was uncomfortable with being sexualized in a dance that was a problem and he was being unprofessional, but when Gina didn’t want to be sexualized by bringing their relationship public, her reasons were all automatically validated. I’m not here for the double standard.

Of course, everything is eventually fixed, and they meet each other halfway fairly easily after some basic communication, which I appreciated, but I would have appreciated it more if it had come sooner and with less angst. I enjoyed the book even though some of the pacing was a bit slow, but the heroine’s treatment of the hero left something to be desired and I wasn’t crazy about the third act break-up. All in all, I did enjoy this story and found it a refreshing break from my usual fare, but some aspects could’ve been handled a bit better. This was my first read from this author but I did like her writing enough to check out more of her work.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.