For everyone who hasn’t yet heard of the sport Curling, get
ready to fall in love with the game. Yes, this is a romance – but it is as much
a romance between two women as it is romancing a practically unknown sport –
and gosh, both the romances are completely bewitching.
Max Lauren was a hotshot sports reporter based out of New
York City till one monumental mistake has put her name in the gutter. Her
penance and purgatory to earn back her stripes is to be an embedded reporter
for Team Mulligan – America’s second-place curling team – through their curling
season. She takes on the assignment with very poor grace, knowing it is her
only shot to get back. Callie Mulligan is the Skip (skipper/captain) of Team
Mulligan, a curling team from Buffalo. Callie is single-minded about making it
to the top of the sport she is completely passionate about. So much so that she
considers curling to be her main job and picks up a multitude of other
freelance jobs, ensuring that none of them interrupt her focus from her main
job – to earn her living. Max arrives with a chip (maybe a tree) on her
shoulder and proceeds to antagonise every single person in the first meeting.
She immediately makes matters worse by writing a nasty piece, disguised as
humour, about curling. From this point to a HEA between Max and Callie is an
excellently written journey.
Callie is one of the most beautiful souls we’ve met in the
world of words. Her goodness weaves its magic over everyone in the book and
spills out of the pages and weaves itself around the reader also. We are quite
certain that Callie is the Galatea to Spangler’s Pygmalion and the author has
undoubtedly fallen in love with her creation. The descriptions and descriptors
used for Callie are all about love. And no one can be immune to that love
(confession: about half an hour after finishing the book we caught ourselves
singing Can’t Help Falling in Love with
You – yeah, eye-roll). There is a sense of nobility about Callie, the person,
and about her passion for curling.
There is the compulsory conflict but it is not forced. In fact,
it is a kind of necessary conflict because certain issues needed to be brought
to a head and resolved before the HEA. It is admirable that the conflict is
created and then explained in a way where both women are justified (okay,
another admission: we were totally Team Callie emotionally even when cerebrally
we could understand the Max PoV when presented).
Like Delicate, this
is a great romance; a great sports romance and highly recommended.
PS: Totally love the covers of both the books – Delicate and Fire & Ice.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
