The Countess of Eighth Avenue

About this book

Harlem, 1927. For sixteen years Odette Freeman has taught dance at the Savoy Ballroom without once stepping onto that floor as anyone's partner. They call her the Countess of Eighth Avenue because she can count a rhythm into any body in six lessons flat — and because everyone knows how her husband died the night their act was to debut. She teaches. She corrects. She keeps her hands professional and her heart behind a locked door. It has worked beautifully, right up until Elias Marsh walks into her Thursday class: thirty-one, a Pullman porter with immaculate posture, a widower with a five-year-old daughter who has started asking why Daddy only ever sways. He wants to learn before the Harvest Ball. He listens when she talks about weight transfer, breath, and where a person holds their grief. And Odette has one iron rule.