Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon Category:  Action/Thriller Publisher: Oak Tree Press ISBN-10:  161009140X Type: Fiction Pages: 59 Copyright: Dec 8, 2013 ISBN-13: 9781610091404 Price: $2.99 (eBook) The story of a young woman who enters the dark world of adult entertainment.  Dancer gives readers an inside look at  the adult entertainment business through the eyes of a naive college student who learns things aren't always what they seem.  Dancer is available on Amazon. Excerpt After parking her car, Sherry nervously made her way to the After Hours entrance. She noticed the text beneath the big sign: A Gentlemen’s Club. “What am I doing here?” she said to no one as she furiously chewed on a piece of gum. A huge man stood outside the door; his sport coat, the size of a tent, did little to hide his muscular frame. “By yourself tonight, Miss?” “Yes.” The behemoth pulled open the door for her. “Go right in, enjoy your evening.” “Thanks.” So far so good. It seemed like a respectable place. She walked through a short hallway featuring photos of the dancers, all of them almost nude, save for a g-string and transparent negligee. Sherry wanted to study the pictures to see what kind of women did this sort of thing. However, she felt self-conscious staring at the photos, so she continued forward toward the club proper.

Fantastic
By Jackie Taylor Zortman on January 9, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Started reading "Dancer" tonight and couldn't put it down. Thought I'd just read a few more pages and then just a few more and, first thing you know, I'd finished it. I absolutely loved this novella and think that John, as usual, did one fantastic job with this one.

Jackie Taylor Zortman
Author of WE ARE DIFFERENT Now

If you love a police story
By e.ayers on December 27, 2013
Format: Paperback
This was written from the "other" side. College girl lured by the thrill of money and dragged deeper and deeper into dirty side of things. A psychological trip of a young woman in a gentleman's club, who didn't know how to get out nor was she ready to walk away from the money.

This was different from Mr. Wills other books and I expect we might be seeing more. It's a quick read that will haunt long after reaching the end.

A book for people who like to be challenged in their reading, but are short on time to read
For the most part I read for entertainment value, and I like happy endings. A book like The Dancer is not one I would normally enjoy. However, because I had been captivated by other Wills’ books, most recently The Year Without Christmas, I stuck with The Dancer, a dark, gritty book that hints at tragedy almost from the opening pages. In fact, I read the book more than once.

The Dancer did more than to entertain me – it made me think long and hard about why the lives of many people are so difficult and seemingly doomed to tragedy. The main character, Sherry, is a poor but intelligent and hard working young woman who strives for more in her life. However, it is also clear that achieving her higher goals will not be easy, no matter how hard she tries. Sherry has three strikes against her: she is poor; she has no family to whom she can turn for help; and the work she is able to secure as a student does not pay well enough to adequately cover the cost of college tuition and living expenses.

Sherry’s vulnerability makes her relatively easy prey for a classmate, Denise, whose promise of easy money seems to be the solution to Sherry’s problems. While the job as an exotic dancer is not illegal, it ultimately leads to Sherry’s destruction. And here Wills raises an eternal dilemma: once a moral value has been breached, does it then become inevitable that one will subsequently violate other moral values?

There were two things I wished for as I read this book – both reasons why I would recommend it to everyone else who wants more than entertainment in their reading. I originally wished that Wills had expanded this novella to a longer book so that some of the veiled issues would have been revealed. For example, why is Sherry so alone in the world? What forces fueled her drive to better herself? Did those same forces also feed the greed that led to her downfall? What is the source of Sherry’s moral values, and would she have stuck to those values had she been in a community of people who encouraged her to stay true to herself even in the face of temptation? As much as I might have wanted this book to be expanded into a full length novel, I have to concede that it is Sherry’s contradictions and mysteries that make her a “round” rather than “flat” character, despite the length of the book. I also wished I had read the book as part of a book discussion group so that the ethical and moral issues raised could have been explored with other people.

I would recommend this compelling novella to anyone – the story is fascinating, and Wills’ writing enhances the story. I would especially recommend The Dancer to those readers in book discussion groups, particularly when populated by busy people who say they don’t have time to read longer books, but who still want all the advantages of reading and discussing a full-length novel.