Book Review: Spring in My Step by Sallyanne Rogers

Spring in My Step is available now and is published by X-Cite.

I have a confession to make, I am in recovery from a behavioural disorder. One perhaps even worse than my decade of almost vegetarianism and the scurvy incident. The truth is I was once, no, not even once, I was repeatedly… a Morris dancer (I shan’t recount my exploits here but I will just mention that I once took part in a successful sixteen man vandals, including a full Litchfield hay). So when presented with the prospect of reading Morris dancing erotica (no, wait, that sentence doesn’t scan) how could I possibly refuse?

Spring in My Step is a pretty vanilla piece by my usual standards. It’s also surprisingly short at a little over a hundred pages (yes I read in paperback mostly, don’t judge me). But what it loses in length it makes up for in cheery ease of reading. There’s a good hearty pace to the story that treads the line between dragging on too long and making you feel like you were cheated. You also get a fair amount of banging for your buck. There are a good number of sex scenes for the length and these are well handled although tending slightly towards the shorter side. Good fun but not earth shattering; sexy whilst managing to avoid getting too mechanical.

Perhaps more impressively is the amount of plot going on. Yes it does come down to girl meets boy, girl suspects boy’s a bit of a twat, but mix in a documentary film maker, inter-Morris side politicking and it’s actually pretty busy. I enjoyed it, although I do wonder whether my pre-existing familiarity with ‘squires’ ‘border’ ‘hays’ and ‘baldrics’ made it an easier read than for someone who’s soul hasn’t been tainted by English folk traditions.

There are other criticisms too, lots of the characters are relatively functional and the main conflict in the piece hinges on the narrator caring a little bit too much about the politics of Morris dancing, but at this point I’m really scraping the barrel.

Spring in My Step is worth reading if nothing else than for the novelty of having read it. And if someone you care about suffers from the affliction of Morris dancing, well, I can’t say this will help, but it will certainly make for an interesting Christmas Present.