Advance notice for Letters from Yelena from author Hanna Jameson
I’ve been fortunate this week to be given a kind advance notice for ‘Letters From Yelena’ from the exceptional Hanna Jameson, author and aspiring ballerina. Her debut novel Something You Are is published in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands in December (a copy of its exquisite Dutch cover is below). 'I finished Letters from Yelena in two sittings. The mental and physical strain of the professional ballet artist is almost tangible. Mankowski creates a bleak and isolated landscape, where aspiration and ambition can be crushed under the sheer weight of their own internal pressure. 'Yelena' has more emotional and intellectual depth in a chapter than the entirety of The Black Swan. Instead it harks back to something like the visual masterpiece of The Red Shoes; romantic, dark, uncompromising, and beautiful. I defy any woman, and any dancer, to not see parts of themselves in Yelena. Exceptionally talented. Thank God you don't write crime/thrillers or I'd be bitter an...