Wuthering Heights, but about figure skaters. It’s hard to remember the last time a new novel had a premise more tailor-made for me than The Favorites by Chicago author Layne Fargo. And it sure lived up to my hopes; Fargo executes this concept with all the fast-paced turns and heightened drama of a winning ice dance performance.
The Favorites by Layne Fargo
Random House, hardcover, 448 pp., $28, penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747088/the-favorites-by-layne-fargo
But you don’t have to be a fan of Emily Brontë or figure skating to appreciate this novel, with its fierce heroine, messy love triangle, high-stakes setting, and page-turning plot. I raised my eyebrow when I saw that the publisher bills it as a romance, since Brontë’s original is no sentimental love story but rather a twisted saga of jealousy and revenge. Fargo’s version has all the envy and rage—and yes, some mildly spicy romance—but The Favorites is also a cautionary tale about ambition, with a dash of commentary on celebrity culture.
Much of the prose is first-person narrative by fictional ice dancer Katarina Shaw, a retired Olympian looking back on her on-again, off-again skating partnership and personal relationship with Heath Rocha. The pair grew up together in a fictional Chicago suburb called the Heights, but the North Shore setting belies their tough circumstances. Heath spent his early years in the foster system, and Kat is an orphan living under the guardianship of an abusive elder brother. As Kat teaches Heath to skate on frozen Lake Michigan and they train as ice dancers at a local rink, the two become everything to each other, on and off the ice. “I loved Heath Rocha before I knew what love was,” Kat reflects.
Credit: © Katharine Hannah Photography
When their talents launch them from obscurity into a prestigious training program in LA, the class differences at the heart of Wuthering Heights perfectly translate to the glamour and elitism of the figure skating world. Before long, the pressures of their new environment threaten to tear the infatuated young couple apart. “His love for me hadn’t been motivation enough to reach his full potential,” Kat later says of Heath. “His hatred, though? That made him capable of anything.”
Kat’s narration alternates with transcripts from a fictional documentary being released ten years after the shocking end of team Shaw and Rocha’s career. With commentary from former training mates, rivals, coaches, judges, and journalists, these interludes provide context about the sport and drop juicy hints about the drama to come.
Fargo’s pacing is relentless; nearly every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger or teaser that makes it hard to put the book down. Although several plot twists feel far-fetched, it’s only fair to allow for some salacious fiction when figure skating is the source of real-life scandals such as those surrounding Tonya Harding and Kamila Valieva.
Given the darkness of Wuthering Heights, I was surprised—ultimately, pleasantly so—by the individual growth of Fargo’s characters and the downright wholesomeness of some moments. But Brontë acolytes can rest assured: there’s enough backstabbing by morally gray characters to convincingly transport this Gothic classic from the gloomy moors of England to the glaring lights of Olympic ice.
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2025-02-03 11:21:59