Can you take Cathy and Heathcliff’s tortured romance out of the Yorkshire moors? Layne Fargo proves that the answer is yes in THE FAVORITES, a reimagining of WUTHERING HEIGHTS set in the exclusive world of competitive ice dance.

Fargo’s irresistibly pulpy novel follows its heroine, Katarina Shaw, from her lonely childhood on the outskirts of Chicago through the ups and downs of her figure skating career. By her side, both on the ice and off, is her skating partner and lover Heath Rocha, a foster child who was taken in by Kat’s late father. Kat has one goal in life: to become an Olympic-level figure skater. She chases that dream from her desolate, decrepit home on the shores of Lake Michigan to an elite training facility in Los Angeles to international competitions that thrust her and Heath into the global spotlight. But in her single-minded pursuit of greatness, she risks losing what matters to her most.

"At times, THE FAVORITES recalls Megan Abbott’s taut thrillers set in the claustrophobic world of gymnastics and ballet. Ice dance might look sedate and sophisticated to the uninformed viewer, but in this story, it’s a sport simmering with soap opera-worthy levels of intrigue and drama."

THE FAVORITES mirrors many elements of Emily Brontë’s enduringly popular novel. In the early chapters, Kat and Heath are united against her abusive brother Lee, who has banished Heath from the family home. Rival skaters Bella and Garrett Lin, the privileged children of two-time gold medalist Sheila Lin, stand in for Isabella and Edgar Linton. The meddling skater Ellis Dean, the book’s delightful Nelly Dean analogue, runs a Gawker-esque skating gossip blog and dresses like Johnny Weir. (Fittingly, Weir narrates the part of Ellis in the audiobook.) Heath flees after he hears Kat speak candidly of their relationship with another character, leading her into a new skating partnership with Garrett. When Heath returns after a mysterious absence and partners with Bella, it’s Kat who nurses feelings of betrayal.

But Fargo’s book is not simply WUTHERING HEIGHTS on ice. The enigmatic Heath is more wounded child than brooding gothic villain. Kat is as fiery and tempestuous as Catherine Earnshaw, but she’s more sympathetic. Even when she’s making questionable decisions, you want her to win. That’s largely because Kat narrates much of the novel, offering clear insight into her state of mind and motivations. “My story is mine,” she declares on the opening page. “And I’ll tell it the same way I skated: in my own way, on my own terms.” (Sections told from Kat’s point of view alternate with excerpts from The Favorites: The Shaw & Rocha Story, a tell-all documentary featuring various insiders offering their take on the pair’s tumultuous career.)

Kat means it when she says that she does things on her own terms. Her fierce style and unconventional background make her an outcast in the world of competitive ice dance, with its strict rules, intensive training regimens, and rigid ideas about gender and sexuality. “Champion skaters should be role models…especially the ladies,” a figure skating official sniffs when speaking of Kat. But it’s precisely Kat’s willingness to push boundaries that makes her such a compelling athlete and performer. In this way, Fargo nods to real-life figures such as Tonya Harding and Surya Bonaly, who challenged ideas of what female skaters should be.

At times, THE FAVORITES recalls Megan Abbott’s taut thrillers set in the claustrophobic world of gymnastics and ballet. Ice dance might look sedate and sophisticated to the uninformed viewer, but in this story, it’s a sport simmering with soap opera-worthy levels of intrigue and drama. Bitter rivalries, crushing injuries, devastating betrayals and psychological tricks are the order of the day. Somewhat unbelievably, the sport is also popular enough that Kat and Heath become media darlings, with hungry paparazzi tracking their every move.  

THE FAVORITES shimmers and delights when it explores the thorny relationship between Kat and Heath. But the endless on- and off-ice theatrics gradually become repetitive, while a third-act sabotage plot that unfurls at the 2014 Sochi Olympics is underdeveloped and hastily resolved. Yet Fargo still manages to stick the landing, delivering an unexpectedly poignant ending for her world champion characters.