By Liz Soares
Just in time for the 2026 Winter Olympics—it’s that amazing ice dancing team, Shaw and Rocha!
When Katarina Shaw, as a young girl, watches Sheila Lin win an Olympic gold medal for ice dancing, she knows she wants that life. She also wants Heath Rocha by her side.
Yes—Kat and Heath. Surely Emily Brontë would have something to say about such a pairing.
Layne Fargo’s story unfolds not on the wild Yorkshire moors but in a nondescript Chicago suburb, a utilitarian Illinois skating rink—and then Los Angeles, Russia, Paris, and anywhere skaters skate and Olympics are held. That’s Kat and Heath’s journey.
Did the quiet, handsome foster child—eventually taken in by Kat’s father—truly want to be part of an elite ice-dancing couple? It’s hard to say. He loves Kat and wants to be part of her world, and Kat is a force to be reckoned with.
The Favoritesis long on drama and shorter on characterization, yet it’s populated by intriguing people. Kat is tempestuous, to say the least. Her feistiness gets her noticed by the great Sheila Lin, now a coach and the mother of skating twins Garrett and Isabella. Sheila is a cool, controlled “ice queen.” Garrett is a mensch, while Bella is sharper-edged—competitive and occasionally scheming. Still, Bella and Kat become friends. Kat always has her eye on the next rung of the ladder; Bella espouses a philosophy of keeping one’s enemies close.
Chapters told from Kat’s point of view alternate with commentary from an “unauthorized documentary” about Shaw and Rocha. These voices include an uptight skating judge, a flamboyant former skater turned blogger, Sheila herself, and Lin’s former partner and chief rival, the Russian Veronika Volkova. Volkova now coaches her niece, ensuring that tensions ripple into the next generation.
The documentary segments add a smirky, knowing layer to the narrative and neatly foreshadow events—of which there are many. The plot’s ups and downs are as dizzying as the twizzles (intricate twirls) the ice dancers perform at the height of their programs. Shaw and Rocha are together. Then they’re not. Then they are again. There’s deception. There’s blood. There are passionate kisses on the ice.
Whoa, baby.
This book is a lot of fun. I did occasionally find myself thinking, What is driving Kat? Why is Heath so passive? But then I’d turn the page. Suddenly it seemed more important to see whether love could survive, friendships could be mended, characters could come out of the closet—and, yes, whether medals could be won.
