Dancer of Dreams
- Author: Patricia Matthews
- Publisher: Bantam
- Year: 1983 hardcover, 1984 trade paperback
- Setting: 1737, Tidewater, Virginia; Paris; Scotland
- ISBN Number: 9780553340341 (paperback)
This is the story of Hannah Verner and her daughter, Michele. Hannah's story about coming to America as an indentured servant, began in the book, Love's Avenging Heart. Now she is the widow of a wealthy planter who has died in a mysterious accident, leaving the plantation, Malvern, heavily mortgaged to arrogant, enigmatic Courteney Wayne. Hannah is determined to personally supervise the plantation and to free herself from his debt. She finds that she is attracted to Courteney, and their affair ignites the warm passion she has suppressed for too long. Then she discovers that Courteney might have engineered her husband's death as part of his scheme to possess Malvern. Heartsick, she sails for France, where her daughter, Michele, has been pursuing her own dreams in the famous ballet school of Arnaud Deampierre.
Dazzled and inspired by the charismatic master, Michele triumphs at her debut --- even catching the eye of King Louis himself. But when her lover, handsome Scottish aristocrat Ian MacLeven, proposes marriage, he demands that she give up dancing.
