Gold Medal Reads

With the Winter Olympics coming up next month, I thought it would be fun to highlight some novels that happen to feature some of the winter sports that you'll see coming up.  From hockey to skiing, here is some great fiction to enjoy this winter.

Beartown - Fredrik Backman
Hockey

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.




L'Affaire - Diane Johnson
Skiing

Diane Johnson returns with another expatriate comedy of manners in this tale of a young dot-com executive from California who sets off for Europe to find culture, her roots, and maybe a cause to devote her considerable fortune to. When Amy checks into one of the finest small hotels in the French Alps - a hotel noted for skiing and for cooking lessons - she encounters a memorable cast of Euro trash aristocrats and ski enthusiasts. She has no plans to fall in love. But on the first afternoon, she is nearly swept away by an avalanche.


Chasing Stanley - Deirdre Martin
Hockey

Professional hockey player Jason Mitchell is thrilled when he's traded to the New York Blades-the team of his dreams. There's just one problem: his pooch isn't adjusting to city life too well. Good thing he crosses paths with dog trainer Delilah Gould. And then he begins to fall for her...


Now, with the season heating up, Jason realizes he'll have to score big to win the Stanley Cup-and the woman who has tamed his dog and unleashed his heart.





Swift Edge - Laura DiSilverio
Figure Skating

When world-class figure skater Dmitri Fane goes missing, his partner knows just whom to hire. It's up to Swift Investigations to find the missing Fane, and fast---the Olympics are just weeks away. It should be no trouble for the investigative team of Charlie Swift and Gigi Goldman: Their chief obstacle is Gigi's teenage daughter, Kendall, and her mad crush on Fane. That is, until the skating team's coach is brutally attacked and a colleague of Dmitri is killed, and things start to get complicated.