THE GAMES

Author: Patricia McLinn ISBN: 0976518511 1/2006 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: DELPHI BOOKS

Medals can be won, careers can be made and hearts can be lost in the sixteen days of the Winter Olympics. Tess Rutledge, once an Olympic champion figure skater, returns to the Games as a coach, encountering her first love -- and only heartbreak - and testing her ability to forgive. Alpine skier Kyle Armstrong has made a terrible mistake that could cost her a shot at Olympic gold as well as any hope of reconciling with the man she loves. Biathlete Rikki Lodge thinks she's just happy to be at the Games, until she meets a hockey player who demands that she do what she's never done before: put it all on the line. Let The Games begin!

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

It sure wasn't hard to rank THE GAMES by Patricia McLinn as a Top Pick. Using the backdrop of the Olympics, this story of the games that go on both during the competition and behind-the-scenes has everything going for it, including plenty of thrills, spills and competitive action, and enough personal drama to shake a hockey stick at. Every character in THE GAMES was a person I liked, cared for and cared about, both personally and in their Olympic competitive moments.

Of all the relationships in THE GAMES, I found Tess and Andrei's to be the most romantic and the one I wished for the happiest conclusion. A skating coach for the U.S., Tess attends the Olympics in support of her 14 year-old protégé, Amy. Eighteen years before, Tess had been a competitor in the Olympics and had fallen hopelessly in love with a handsome Russian skater, Andrei, now also a coach, but for the Russians. Encountering her first love all these years later, the unwelcome memories of broken promises and the betrayal of a young girl's heart come flooding back to Tess. As Andrei tries to rekindle their relationship, Tess isn't sure she can forgive him the past and is determined to guard herself from future heartache.

Rikki, a biathlete, falls for Lenny, a hotshot U.S. hockey player. Their romance begins scorching hot and is sexually driven, providing some pretty steamy sex scenes. Yet it soon becomes apparent that these two—one, a cautionary competitor, and the other, a no-holds-barred risk taker—have a lot of work cut out for them if their relationship is to make it beyond the 16 days of the competitions. These two are definitely the hottest players in this book, both in and out of the competition.

And then there's Kyle, the skier and a loner, who, after falling in love with and being rebuffed by her coach, Rob, a year earlier, has made some pretty foolish choices in her life. Finding herself confronted with a medical drama that may have an adverse affect on both her athletic career and in her personal life, Kyle finds herself turning to the support of her teammate, Nan, and the rest of the girls in her "pod", Tess, Amy, and Rikki, for support. Through them she finds acceptance, inner strength, determination, and the knowledge that it's okay to depend on and love others.

With its intriguing relationships, interesting characters, novel backdrop and a bevy of dramatic developments to keep things quickpaced, it's no wonder Patricia McLinn's THE GAMES gets the starting lead out of the gate and proves to be a well-deserved gold medal finalist. I highly recommend it.

Nancy Davis