The mating dance

by Rona Randall

Alive with the color and drama of the theatre in late-Victorian London, this is the tale of two aspiring actresses and their lifelong rivalry in art -and love. Lucinda Grainger, born out of wedlock to the leading lady's dresser at London's legendary Boswell Theatre, dreams of a spectacular stage debut that will compensate for the years of insults she has endured -slights delivered with malice and an exquisite sense of timing by Clementine Boswell, the self-indulgent daughter of the theatre's aristocratic director.

Clementine is Lucinda's diametric opposite: brunette where Lucinda is blond, amoral and devious where Lucinda is trusting and artless, ruthless where Lucinda is compassionate. All they share is their passion for the stage and their fatal attractions to the wrong men. They are both unforgettable. In their duel of wit and will, the prize is the Boswell Theatre itself, and each woman competes in her own way- Lucinda with her talent and dedication, Clementine with the aid of Lord Durbridge, the debauched and sinister overlord of London's notorious "Babylon" district, where expensive vice flourishes and reputations are hazarded with the cast of the dice.

The MATING DANCE is an unforgettable novel of temptation, danger and corruption, of love and self-delusion, of art and dreams. Rich with the authentic sights and sounds of the London theatre, it brilliantly examines the central paradox of Victorian society and marriage- respectability before the fan, depravity behind.

427 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Rona Green Shambrook
aka Rona Randall, Rona Shambrook, Virginia Standage

Rona Green was born on 16 June 1911 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, UK. Her education includes: Pitmans College in London, a Diploma in English Literature at Royal Society of Art, Birkenhead School of Art Literary. She married Frederick Walter Shambrook, and had a son.

A former actress, before writing, she worked also as journalist and sub-director of publishing company Amalgamated Press, and as assistant editor of George Newnes Ltd. Published since 1942, she started publishing mainly contemporary doctor nurse romances, before writing also gothic romances, and when the market for gothic novels softened, she wrote historical mystery romances. In 1970, Broken Tapestry, her contemporary novel about a broken family, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. In 1989, she wrote her The Model Wife: Nineteenth Century Style, a book about social constumbres, including clothing. In 1992, she wrote Writing Popular Fiction, a complete guide for writers.