In Blue Dancing, Diane McKinney-Whitestone and present, character and place with a transfixing lyricism that shimmers in its detail. This richly spun story of love, passion, betrayal, and redemption shifts seamlessly between modern-day and 70"s Philadelphia when Verdi, the pampered daughter of a prosperous southern preacher, enrolls at the local university. Immediately drawn to Johnson, a fellow student whose city-smart ways are as intriguing as they are shocking, Verdi spirals into an unfamiliar world of erotic love, militant politics, and heroin. Enter Rowe, the conservative professor who rescues Verdi from her addiction even as he falls hopelessly in love with her himself.Twenty years later, as the novel opens, Verdi and Rowe"s comfortable, if unexciting, existence is rocked when Johnson returns to town-and Verdi must grapple with the memories of her old love and the assurance of her new life. Smooth as jazz, belted out with McKinney-Whetstone"s signature rhythm and intensity, Blues Dancing is both poignant and compelling, brilliantly capturing the desperate struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love"s rediscovery.