More Games, Less Fun

These Olympics have been STRESSING ME OUT y'all

See below for some recent news, info about my next in-person event (this Sunday!), and the winter sports reading recs I promised in last week’s post. But first, a few quick thoughts on the Olympics, mental health, and ambition.

I think we all needed a hug after that men’s free skate.

The skating events have been so freaking stressful. First the infuriating results of the ice dance final (Chock & Bates were robbed, and so were Gilles & Poirier; the French rape apologists deserved bronze at best IMHO), then Ilia Malinin’s crashout in the men’s free, and now my beloved Amber Glenn doubling a triple jump in the women’s short and ending up in 13th place. I can only hope that The Nice Capades’ Taylor Swift curse theory applies in the reverse to Amber, and going into the free in 13th will somehow turn out to be lucky for her 🙏

We talk all the time about fear of failure, but fear of success is a real thing, too. Winning or even leveling up = big change and being perceived on a broader scale, which our nervous systems often interpret as a threat. When Ilia popped his famous quad axel and Amber doubled that jump after landing a flawless triple moments earlier, I saw it as their bodies betraying them because their subconscious minds were trying to protect against the “danger” of ending up on that Olympic podium.

It’s primal, evolutionary: self-sabotage as a misguided means of self-preservation. And while I’ll never know what it’s like to experience Olympic-gold-medal-favorite-level pressure and worldwide media scrutiny, my own therapy sessions over the past year or so have largely been dedicated to this issue.

I am ambitious as hell, I want the big advance checks and bestseller status and movie deals and the whole damn thing. But when The Favorites broke out last year, I felt paralyzing terror alongside my happiness. I still do. With every new milestone, my nervous system rings the alarm bells louder, and I have to work hard to calm it down, to keep from giving in to that little voice in my head that tells me to burn it all to the ground and stay small cause I’ll be safer that way.

Whether you’re an athlete or an artist or have some totally different ambition in life, I think we can all relate (well, maybe not Alysa Liu… I am once again asking someone to study that unbothered queen’s nervous system in a lab). For me, there’s been a lot of shame around these fears, because it can feel like I’m complaining about / ungrateful for all the amazing things that have happened in my career and life recently, which is not at all the case… but I’m hoping sharing about this more openly takes the teeth out of it somewhat, for myself and for others!

A few happier Olympic thoughts to end on:

• Speaking of unbothered queens, 17 year-old Japanese skater Ami Nakai was an absolute delight yesterday. If you’re in need of serotonin, I highly recommend watching the program that put her in the lead after the short. (Still rooting for Queen Kaori to take the gold in the final on Thursday though 🙏)

• I could not be more obsessed with freestyle skier Eileen Gu laughing in the face of a (male, of course) reporter who asked her an insulting question at a post-event press conference. An inspiration to us all!

• Also absolutely living for all the athletes posting day-in-the-life content from the Olympic Village, in particular American ice dancer Emilea Zingas (who will definitely be in the acknowledgments for The Ice Queens cause she saved me so much research time with her detailed dorm room tour, thanks girl!)

📣 Upcoming Events & Other News

If you’re in the Chicago area, I’m doing a free event at Secret World Books in Highland Park this Sunday afternoon at 2pm. It should be a chill, intimate gathering with plenty of time for discussion and questions, and I’d love to see you there!

And if you’re in Los Angeles and looking for something to do on Friday night, check out this staged reading of the queer ice dance TV pilot Iceburn by Taylor Brogan.

Taylor DMed me after The Ice Queens was announced to give me a heads up about her project, which also focuses on a sapphic rivals-to-lovers female/female ice dance team, and I was so delighted! I honestly love it when these spooky great-minds-think-alike artistic moments happen. Maybe 2027 can be The Year of Sapphic Ice Dance like 2025 was The Year of the Lady Knight Novel?

In other news, The Favorites has been popping up on all sorts of fun lists related to both the Olympic ice dance competition / subsequent scoring controversy and the new Wuthering Heights movie (which I still haven’t seen… I think I may need to wait until I can watch it at home, to allow for screaming breaks). Truly, what a time to be the author of a Wuthering Heights x ice dance novel!

A few favorites (pun 100% intended):

• 7 Best Wuthering Heights Book Adaptations (People)

• All of the Best Winter Olympic Books to Read While You Watch Team USA (Good Housekeeping)

• Tales of Obsession and Fractured Intimacy: 11 Intense Romance Novels for Fans of Wuthering Heights (Tatler Asia)

• 9 Best Winter Sports Romances to Read During the 2026 Olympics (Swooon)

📚 Winter Sports Reading Recs

If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’ve already read The Favorites — so here are a few other winter sports-related book recommendations for all your Olympics commercial break reading needs.

📘 Blade by Wendy Walker

(Not to be confused with the Wesley Snipes movie of the same name lol)

I had the pleasure of blurbing this one, and of doing an event with Wendy for the Chicago Literary Salon a few weeks ago. Wendy is a former competitive skater, and she brings all her expertise and authenticity to this nail-biter of a thriller about a young figure skater accused of murder and the former skater-turned-lawyer determined to help clear her name.

📘 Finding Her Edge by Jennifer Iacopelli

This YA ice dance novel is also a retelling of a classic (Jane Austen’s Persuasion in this case), and it’s also got a fun Netflix adaptation that was recently renewed for a second season! The skating content in the book is way more accurate than in the show, but I enjoyed the hell out of both (though, as I told Jennifer after I finished the season one finale, I know I’m old now cause instead of shipping the teen protagonists, I’m all about their hot parents 😆).

📘 Skate It Till You Make It by Rufaro Faith Mazarura

Next up on my personal TBR! I adored Rufaro’s Summer Olympics-set rom-com Let the Games Begin, and honestly if she wants to keep writing a romance set at every Olympic Games for the foreseeable future, I’m ready to preorder each and every one.

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See you next week, when I’ll no doubt be in the throes of both post-Olympics depression and rapidly-approaching-deadline panic, get psyched!!