Flirty Dancing is a gay reimagining of the classic movie Dirty Dancing.

This book follows Archer, an ex accountant and aspiring dancer, and Mateo, an ex Broadway star who dissapeared from the face of the earth. They both find themselves dancing for the summer at a queer resort in the Catskills in NY.

This story was funny, messy, chaotic at times, sexy and full of drama. I really enjoyed it, it was different than anything I've read.

I loved the camp vibes of this book. All the dancers live in cabins on the resort property and do fun activities together, like game nights, midnight skinny dipping, parties, etc.

I loved seeing Archer and Mateo's relationship develop, even though Archer was dating someone else during a part of the summer, it made for a more realistic story in my opinion. If you don't like an MC dating someone else than the other MC you might not like this book but it didn't bother me (there is NO cheating don't worry).

This book was a silly fun time and it is super short so it is very bingeable. If you love drama, simmering tension, tender and sweet moments, dance and summer vibes, this book is for you!

As a person who went to school for theatre and has danced my entire life, I enjoyed this so much! The setting was perfect for a fun rom-com. Flirty Dancing is full of hilarious characters. I'll admit I found Archer a bit insufferable though. He was complaining about not booking anything after auditioning for five months?! Please.

BUT

Everyone else certainly made up for my annoyance with him. I adored complex Mateo and bubbly Betty.

Was this a bit unrealistic and silly? Yes, but I think it's a great book to read in between heavier books. It was fun and not high stakes which is a plus in my book!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press (St. Martin's Griffin) for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

dirty dancing is one of my favorite movies of all time so i was ecstatic to have been given early access to this book! other than the setting and that there is dancing, that's about where the similarities end. the writing is perfect for a rom com and is an easy read. all of the characters are easy to learn and incredibly fun to follow. i did want to throw the book a couple of times based on some choices that these guys made, but it all worked out in the end! super engaging and enjoyable read, perfect for going into summer!

Flirty Dancing opens with Archer. Archer is 27 and he is feeling old. He’s originally an accountant from Ohio, but he's recently moved to Manhattan to try and break into the Broadway scene. Unfortunately, so far there’s been no luck as he continues to be rejected from show after show. Out of desperation, he auditions for a dancing role at the adult gay summer camp Shady Queens, and surprising himself he gets chosen. Upon arriving, however, he meets the camp grump, Mateo. However he's also the Mateo Dixon, aka Archer's teenage crush and whose posters were all over Archer’s childhood bedroom. Mateo has been out of Broadway performances for over a decade, following a brief rise to fame and disastrous crash and burn due to his attitude and combativeness on set. So, understandably, seeing him here is surprising. But there’s a chemistry between them, no matter how grumpy Mateo can be or how young Archer is in comparison.

This is a pretty cute summer vibes romance that can’t be taken too seriously or else it’s internal logic falls apart. Starting with the positives, I have to say that Moffatt absolutely captured the genuine messiness and in-fighting of summer staff lodges at remote resorts - I know, because I’ve worked at one before. Only instead of being in a love triangle like Archer, Mateo, and Caleb (or like Beau, Ben, and Caleb - or like Caleb and really any man), I had a guy break into my room and pee through the window meshing hoping a bear would be attracted to the smell and bust in while I was sleeping. And no, I'm not talking about the gay bear kind of bear, it was Grizzly season. Anyway, I mention that example to show that, while the messiness of this book would be out of place and juvenile in other romance settings, the way the messiness is written here felt entirely accurate to me and my experiences. I also thought that the age-gap in this book was handled well and never really came across as creepy or inappropriate, which can too often happen when this trope is used.

From a critical perspective, since I always include at least one thing in every review I do, I will say that I wish the characters’ growth and development was handled a little better. Unfortunately I never really felt like Archer grew himself, instead it felt like others were growing around him which then led to him feeling less inadequate and less like he stood out negatively. Other characters had growth which felt like it came out of nowhere following a single event, which left it feeling like simply a plot device to move to the next part of the story rather than genuine growth (e.g., Caleb post-gossip magazine event).

“Flirty Dancing” was very cute! Archer is a little late to the game trying to chase his dream of being a Broadway dancer in New York at 27. He’s gone to 30+ auditions and gotten no roles in the six months he’s been in the city. When he gets the role of a dancer at a queer friendly summer camp style show in the Catskills, it’s better than nothing.
The camp setting was very fun and lighthearted and set the tone for a nice romcom. There was more unnecessary drama than I think was really needed… I don’t see how *anyone* liked Caleb all summer. Even though the characters are all supposed to be in their 20s, “Flirty Dancing” definitely read like a YA romance. There were a few incidents that didn’t really get resolved involving the drama with Caleb and the other dancers, and the last half of the book felt a bit rushed to get to the happy ending.
Overall, it was an enjoyable book, I just wish it had slowed down a bit, toned down the drama, and maybe spiced up a few scenes so it didn’t read like YA with characters nearing 30.

I was expecting a potentially cute, probably cheesy remake of Dirty Dancing, but aside from the cover photo, setting, and occasional references like carrying a watermelon, this book strayed far from the movie in a good way. No disrespect to Dirty Dancing, which I love, but I enjoyed this book for its originality. I love that the main character is an incredible dancer in his own right and challenges the star performer to be even better. A cute, fun, read with a hopeful feeling that it’s never too late to follow our dreams or fall in love.

Archer, a 27 year old accountant leaves his home in Ohio to chase his dreams to dance in New York City. We follow him to the Catskills, where he gets hired to dance at a summer resort.

I think the first thing that must be said is that this is a book with a love triangle - and a long one at that. So if that is not something you enjoy, think about that before hopping into this one. I'm not a person who always hates them, but it can be a difficult trope for me. I found myself frustrated with the main character for being with the wrong love interest for so long, and as someone who struggles to understand purely sexual relationships, I just couldn't vibe with the whole "fling for the summer just for fun" mindset at all. Aside from that, I really enjoyed the scenes where we could really see and feel the undeniable chemistry that Archer and Mateo had. I loved their dancing scenes together, and could feel the heat. Mateo was the most layered character in this book, and really drove the story for me. He really is was kept me reading.
The book was easily bingeable with tons of drama. It was all in all a fun time, and I have no regrets having read it. I do wish the love triangle was shorter, would love to have seen more of Archer and Mateo, but I did enjoy the ending/epilogue and the friendships along the way.

"Archer was intensely aware of where Mateo was at every second, like he was being pulled in that direction, as if his center of gravity was outside of his body and desperate to return to its home."

A fun, spice-free romance with dances you can really picture while reading, I think it's a romance worth reading if you want something quick and fun!

Thank you to Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review. 3.5 stars rounded up

🕺 Love Triangle
🕺 Summer Camp levels of Drama
🕺 Grumpy/Sunshine

4.5/5 🌟
1/5 🌶

What a whirlwind! I could not put this down and read it all In one day! Fast paced and full of the ridiculous drama you only get in a summer camp bubble.

Completely clean, but I could feel the tension and smolder, especially in the dances. I'll just be over here searching dance videos to keep that feeling alive.

This was a beautiful and romantic take on an absolutely classic movie. I was unsure what to except when I started this book, hoping it wouldn’t just be the plot of the movie, so I was excited to find if kept some key elements but was it’s own amazing story. The characters were all so complex and the story was happy and just what I needed!

This year I'm trying to be more selective about widget acceptance because I need to be honorable and clear my backlog (an impossible task, so many good books are coming out every day??) but I did snatch this one up when it came into my e-mail and I'm glad I did!

I'd heard someone say that Flirty Dancing is inspired by Dirty Dancing, but I don't really think there's any similarities besides both being based in the Catskills? Here we have Archer Read, a twenty-seven year old accountant from Ohio who's been auditioning his butt off in New York City trying to make it as a dancer in a Broadway show. Failing that for the last five months, he pins all his last hopes on one final audition - a cabaret show in a LGBTQIA+ geared camp in the Catskills for the summer.

So there he meets a whole cast of characters - Ben and Beau, lovers from Montreal, Caleb, his Black and hot fourth roommate, Betty, an amazing bff-for-the-summer (he's already got a great BFF back home, and there's a whole subplot about her trying to propose to her girlfriend of four months), and... Mateo Dixon, Archer's teenage crush and Broadway idol, a man who's disappeared off the scene after some rumors and drama several years ago.

You'd think that a book like this would be full of tropes and archetypes and whatnot, but I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the characters were a lot more nuanced than I expected. I definitely went in thinking Caleb would be a straight up villain or someone we were supposed to have no sympathy for when he continued acting as he often did from early on, but there was a lot more to him and it was a pleasant surprise! Also, that Mateo was a lot more than the serious and gruff and grumpy "older" man of the troupe (not by much, but maturity-wise for sure), that he was mostly just protecting himself after some trauma related to his family and work life, and also, the hints that he was pretty down bad for Archer even if Archer was too silly to see it were lovely. Can't help but love a love interest who is just So Into the main character/their love interest. I liked too that even though there was a Bunch of characters in the troupe, that we didn't really need to know much about the ones that Archer didn't really interact with, as it's not a long-running manga or anything where said characters could have their own side stories over the three months-ish of the book, but it wasn't really necessary with all that was going on with the Archer/Caleb/Mateo sort of interest-triangle and Betty just being great, and reading this reminded me of the long forgotten fandom term UST - Unresolved Sexual Tension, which we have between Caleb and Mateo for like 90%-plus of this book - especially as they're Latin dancing partners and everyone is losing their minds every day about how hot they are! Love it. Love that people talk about things, and any miscommunication or lack of communication is resolved pretty quickly, too.

(also as a note this is more of a closed door romance by far for any of y'all that prefer that!)

last note: I would die for Judy.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and the St. Martin's Griffin imprint for the widget! I'm glad I read this one.

Thank you to the author, publisher and #netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was my first book by this author and I did enjoy it. This is a very cute pg romcom summer story. Archer and Mateo are working as dancers at a summer resort that has the same set up and feel as Dirty Dancing. This reads exactly like a tv show season. There are a lot of characters and they all have pretty significant roles. The side character really made this story enjoyable fore me. The writing was very easy to read. There was a lot of drama with this story. I didn’t love that Archer had another love interest in the story.

3.75

*Flirty Dancing* by Jennifer Moffatt is a light, entertaining read that offers plenty of fun and flair—perfect for readers looking to unwind with something upbeat. The story moves quickly and is easy to breeze through; in fact, I finished it in just one sitting. Its engaging tone and fast pace keep the pages turning, making it a great option for a weekend or travel read.

That said, while the book has charm, it doesn't always strike the right balance. At times, the plot and dialogue veer into cheesy territory, and the lack of seriousness may not appeal to readers looking for more depth. One notable issue I had was that although the characters aren't technically teenagers, they often act like they are—which came off as a bit immature and occasionally frustrating.

Despite these flaws, *Flirty Dancing* could definitely find its audience. Dancers, theater kids, or anyone with a love for performance and a taste for light romantic comedy will likely enjoy the story’s upbeat energy. I’d especially recommend it for readers aged 15 to 24 who want something fun, flirty, and easy to devour in one go.

🦇 Flirty Dancing Book Review 🦇

❓ Can you dance?

🦇 Archer Read quit his soul-stealing accounting job to move to Manhattan with the dream of breaking into Broadway. After a slew of rejections, he finally gets a gig at Shady Queens, a queer-friendly resort in the Catskills. There, he meets his teenage celebrity crush, Broadway star Mateo Dixon. When Mateo isn't barking orders and glaring at the other dancers, he's burning up the dancefloor with a hot smolder just for Archer. Unfortunately, drama between the dancers makes its way onto the stage. Can they pull off the perfect show, or has Archer ruined his last chance at showbiz?

💜 This queer, forced proximity romance is SIZZLING with tension, pining, and a hot-hot-hot tango. Let's break it down.

✨ Characters (3/5): Adored Archer and Mateo, but Mateo's character development is far stronger than Archer's (so this would have benefited from dual POV). Each member of the secondary cast stands out, which is hard given a large cast.

✨ Plot and Pacing (3/5): The pace lags in the middle, but there are some definite stand-out moments between Archer and Mateo that make it worth it.

✨ World-Building (3/5): Definitely needed more descriptions of Shady Queens, to experience the setting.

✨ Romance (5/5): The tension between Archer and Mateo is everything. Every moment between them stole the show. Their chemistry is absolute fire.

✨ Mystery/Suspense (3/5): I would have held off on giving any details about Mateo's disappearance from Broadway a little longer, to build tension.

✨ Tone/Prose (3/5): No annotations. Though the writing was easy to read, it didn't enamor the way I wanted it to, especially during the dances. The prose relies heavily on jargon, instead of describing fluid movements that would help readers imagine each routine.

🦇 Recommended to fans of Casey McQuiston and TJ Alexander.

✨ The Vibes ✨
🩰 Forced Proximity
☀ Workplace Romance
🩰 Hot Tension
☀ Long-Time Crush
🩰 Queer Contemporary Romance
☀ Slow Burn
🩰 Summer Camp Vibes

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #FlirtyDancing

This book was so fun to read! I was a competitive dancer when I was younger, and I could picture the movements from all the dances coming right out of the page. Archer is a dancer who quit his accounting job hoping to make it in NYC but isn’t having any luck with auditions until a booking a summer dancing job at Shady Queens. It is there that Archer meets Mateo, an Broadway star who has been out of the spotlight for a while. Archer and Mateo had such good banter, and I was rooting for them from the very first time they met. I think that this book had a dynamic group of characters who laughed together, made mistakes, and supported each other. The fact that it was all set at a queer resort made it so much better. I’m looking forward to reading more from this author soon! Thank you to the publisher and author for my advanced copy!

Archer and Mateo had to go through a lot of missteps before finding their rhythm but when they do the results are fire. I loved the dirty dancing nods without it being a direct copy since this is very much its own, wonderful story. This is a fun, flirty novel that should be on everyone’s summer reading list.

I cackled out loud when reading “Flirty Dancing.” Actually cackled. Then went back to the beginning of one particular scene to read it again, enjoying it as much or more the second time. I shall never look at a cast of players who work together for an entire season the same ever again; forever wondering about all the behind the scenes shenanigans and who is pairing up with who.

27 year old Archer has moved to New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a professional dancer despite the doubts and naysayers. After many unsuccessful auditions he finally lands a job dancing for the summer season at Shady Queens resort in the Catskills. Upon arriving he discovers his teen celebrity crush, Mateo Dixon, is also a dancer. Throw in some angsty dance drama, a handsome roommate with a thing for Archer, relationship breakups and makeups, summer camp shenanigans, along with heart stopping smouldering looks and you’ve got the perfect recipe for an event-filled summer that Archer will never forget.

And, while in my own life I strive hard to live a drama free life, I am here for all the drama if it’s written by @jmoffattwrites .

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for the complimentary #drc and the #alc on NetGalley I loved this book, especially the audiobook which kept me thoroughly entertained from start to finish giving voice to each of the characters in this ensemble cast. @itsmarksanderlin did a brilliant job voicing each of the characters! I absolutely loved #flirtydancing.

#stmartinspress #stmartinsgriffin #bookgeek #booknerd #fyp #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #flirtydancing #romancebook #contemporaryromance #bookreviewer #jennifermoffatt

This was such a cute book, I absolutely adored it. It was such a fun time following Archer and cheering for him and Mateo to get together. Plus, a lot of the interactions between characters had me laughing quite a bit. Such a good read!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin for letting me read this early!

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book.
I love a queer romance, I love dance, and I love Dirty Dancing so when I saw this was a Dirty Dancing retelling with a queer story I was immediately excited. Execution wise this missed the mark for me.
I enjoyed the setting in the Catskills. Felt like a nice beach/ lake read.
What disappointed me was the romance. Archer spent 80% of the book with an immature partner who irritated me instead of being with the true love interest and when they did get together, the romance fell flat for me.
I love a dance romance so the tension Moffatt was able to add to the dancing scenes was fun but the storyline felt repetitive and got boring toward the end. I really just wanted to see Archer and Mateo together more! I enjoyed their scenes one on one but there needed to be more of them and less Archer/ Caleb and texting with Lynn or talking with his parents if it isn't going to pay off at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a lovely queer rom com that took inspiration from Dirty Dancing without being the same beats. This was like if the movie was about Johnny, Penny and the cast instead of the guests at the resort. I loved Archer and Mateo so much and I loved how Archer wasn’t framed as this talentless hack who couldn’t cut it next to a dancer like Mateo. There were lots of little twists and turns at the end to keep the story fresh. I really liked how dramatic this was. Everyone in the dance cast had something going on and that made this a ton of fun. Is this reinventing the genre? No. But it was amazingly enjoyable and I had a blast reading it. I am looking forward to what Moffatt writes next!

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I was expecting more of Archer and Mateo and the fact that nothing really happened with them till the last 20% of the book and Archer was with a bad dude the rest of the book was just disappointing. To me this book had such potential. Also the whole ‘I had your poster on my wall’ level vibe Archer had of Mateo was slightly awkward to me. To me this book just read differently than what the synopsis made it out to be.