Book Talk with Layne Fargo, author of "The Favorites"

Ahead of Skate America, we chatted about her best-selling novel set in the world of ice dance -- and yes, Tessa & Scott came up once or twice.

Ahead of the official start of Skate America on Friday, I had the opportunity to host a book talk with Layne Fargo, author of “The Favorites.” For those who aren’t familiar with the book… stop reading this post right now and go read it. No, I’m kidding (kind of… seriously, make time to read it). The book is described by the publisher as “An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice.” It’s told in sections alternating between documentary style interviews and traditional narrative from the perspective of the main character, Katarina Shaw, an ice dancer from Chicago. It is easily my favorite (no pun intended) read of all time and so I was honored that Layne chose me to moderate this event.

For those that weren’t able to attend, you can watch the whole thing below, or read the cleaned up transcript (or do both!). If you stick around until the end — or scroll all the way there if you’re one of those people who reads the last page of books first — you’ll even get a preview of Layne’s next project.

Also, those of you who have read the book will understand the significance of the flowers I brought that are on the mantle behind us for the interview.

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Hello and welcome to everyone. My name’s Baz Perry. I’m the director here at the Lake Placid Public Library, and I’m very excited to have you all here today. And so grateful for The Bookstore Plus for setting up this event and bringing great authors to our residents and our visitors. And I believe, Sarah, are you going to take a moment and introduce our guests for today?

My name is Sarah Galvin, the co-owner of The Bookstore Plus, with my husband, Mark. And welcome to Lake Placid and welcome to Skate America. Really happy that you’re here. Thank you to Lake Placid Library for putting us co-host this event together. And I’m so pleased to introduce Layne Fargo and Adam Reisinger.

Layne has a background in theater, women’s studies, and library sciences, and it’s only fitting that she now writes deliciously dramatic, unapologetically, feminist stories for a living. She’s the author of psychological thrillers “They Never Learn” and “Temper,” as well as co-author on the bestselling “Young Rich Widows” series. And her work has been translated in over into a dozen languages. Layne lives in Chicago with her partner in an ever expanding collection of books.

Adam has been covering sports for more than 30 years and currently serves as a deputy NBA editor for ESPN.com. He has a passion for finger skating. I don’t think you can tell that. Which earlier this year led him to launch the blog Kingdom of Ice-olation, which covers all aspects of skating, from competitions to shows, to theater on ice. He is a Disney adult, which means on most weekends, you can find him at a Disney On Ice show. He is also an author querying his debut novel, a sapphic romance set in the world of show skating. Thank you both so much for being here.

Q: Alright, so she was kind enough to mention, in your bio, that you have a theater background. It wasn’t until I read “Temper” and read all the way through to the bio at the end, that I learned that you were a dramaturg. First, do you want to explain what that is for people who don’t know?

A: A dramaturg is basically like a theater nerd, like a professional theater nerd. So if you’ve ever been to a play and read the program note with the historical context of the piece, or seen a lobby display or something, a dramaturg probably did that. So it’s a lot of nerdy research, which you can tell from “The Favorites” is one of my favorite things to do.

Q: Well, that’s what I was gonna ask, is how much did having that background help in doing the clearly copious research that went into writing “The Favorites?”

A: It helped a lot, and also I just love to research, so it’s kind of just my jam. And this is the first of my books, where I literally let myself go all the way down, all the research rabbit holes, and it was so much fun, and so generative. Like, I just had all these ideas I would never have had without diving deep into the, like, I read all these back issues of Skating Magazine from like the ‘90s and the early 2000s and watched all these videos and read memoirs and all that stuff.

I think my theater background also helped with the parts of the book that are written documentary style, so just, um, dialogue. I also did some playwriting in college and beyond, and that was really helpful in differentiating the character voices. Like obviously there’s an audiobook, um, who’s listened to the audiobook? Yeah, okay. They did an incredible, incredible job with the audiobook. But I wanted, even without those brilliant actors, reading the parts for each of the voices to be really distinctive. I think it was helpful with that.

Q: Now, I’ve heard you tell the story before of how “The Favorites” came together as the product of two distinct ideas. There was a modern retelling of Wuthering Heights, and what you had set out to do was a thriller set in the ice dance world. But I’m curious, how did you, even before you ended up with “The Favorites, how did you decide you wanted to do something in the world of ice dance?

A: It was back in 2018 when Tessa and Scott won gold. I had, so I was obviously like, I loved their performance, but I was also just so fascinated by how feral the internet went over them. Like, there are just all these articles about, like, they must be dating, they have such great chemistry. What’s going on? So I thought that would be really just a fascinating dynamic to write about, like a long-term partnership and like the different stages they go through.

Also, around that time, this is kind of in the heyday of publishing Twitter, which is like no more, unfortunately. But a friend of mine tweeted something at me during the Olympics. It was like, ‘you should write a book about murderous gay ice dancers.’ And I was like, ‘I should!’ So I kind of just started thinking about, and they didn’t really end up being like murderous or gay exactly, but that got me thinking about that world and that it could be a good setting for a book.

And actually, the two projects were, it was a thriller set in the ice dance world, and then sort of a modern gothic romance, but the Wuthering Heights thing, that came in later, and that was what actually gave me the idea to match them together, because I saw how some of the themes and character archetypes in Wuthering Heights worked, like, matched weirdly well with figure skating.

Q: So I guess we have Tessa and Scott to thank for this being an ice dance novel and not a pairs novel?

A: Yes. Yeah, and I think I grew up mostly watching singles, which I think a lot of people do and didn’t really understand ice dance. But I did love, from a young age, Torvill and Dean’s “Bolero,” which that happened the year I was born, like a few months before I was born. So I’m not really sure where I saw it, because this is like before YouTube. They must have just played it again during an Olympic broadcast. But I loved that and had the same, like, even as a kid, I was kind of like, are they married? Like, what’s going on? They have some great chemistry. So I love, love, love that program.

And then as I started researching for this book, the world of ice dance really gave me a lot to play with in that a lot of the skaters, they tend to compete until they’re older. Seems like a longer span of time to play with, more drama, and to put into that span of time. I think, would you agree that I stance is the most dramatic of the discipline?

Q: We’re going to get there.

A: Okay. We’ll get there.

Q: You mentioned you grew up watching singles. The three skaters that you shout out in the dedication are all single skaters. So I’m curious, who were the ice dancers that you were watching? And you’re like, oh, I want I want Kat Shaw to be like her or her.

A: It’s mostly Madison Hubbell. Like, she’s the main one. I just, I, ugh, I love Hubbell and Donohue. I love their whole story of how, you know, they hated each other and then they were dating and then they broke up. They kept skating together and like that whole saga is very interesting to me, but Madison is so strong and athletic, and I know she’s spoken about having struggles, especially before she paired up with Zach, with body image and the expectations for women in the sport to be really slender, and she was like, more muscular. That gave her a lot of power and athleticism on the ice, and once she kind of learned to own and embrace that, that’s when her career really took off. So I wanted that to be the case for Kat as well.

Q: And now we have Madison and Gabi, so are we gonna get Kat and Bella?

A: Not Kat and Bella, but maybe something like that. I did put that, there’s a little scene towards the end of “The Favorites,” for those of you who haven’t read it, where Kat and Bella, the two female main characters, are sort of like improvising skating together to Taylor Swift, and that was inspired by Madison and Gabi.

Q: Now, aside from Tessa and Scott, I’m not going to let you cop out and just be like, ‘oh yeah, Tessa and Scott,’ were there any other teams that, as you were doing research with, you fell in love with?

A: Um... I feel like I shouldn’t… Laurence and Nik, but now not so much. Sorry that’s the real answer, though. I really loved them until all the news came out. I love Laurence as a skater, so she’s really great. And let’s see. I love the the Czech team, the Taschlers. I’m really obsessed with them right now. I don’t know. I tend to like the skaters that are more strong and athletic, and very much skating like equals instead of the typical ballroom, like, the man is the frame, and the woman is the picture kind of thing. Like I like it when they’re both really powerful out there.

Q: Do you have an estimate of how much ice dance you actually watched while you were researching this?

A: I mean, it was during COVID time, so a lot. A lot. It kept me sane. I had all sorts of videos saved to. I keep track of my research on Notion, I have this big database of all my research, and so I had a lot of videos saved. Then there were certain ones I would watch, especially Tessa and Scott. Actually, some of their lifts, I would watch in slow-mo and try and figure out, like, okay, she puts her skate here, and then this, and then, you know. So just hours and hours and hours, and it was often, like, if I was stuck on a scene, I would be like, let’s go to YouTube, and then it really would get me going again. Like it felt like procrastination, but it would help ultimately.

Q: So you mentioned watching the videos and sort of slowing it down, looking at the elements. How challenging was it to describe on the page such a visual sport like I stance?

A: It was really difficult. That was one of the hardest parts of writing this book. Um, because I’m not a super visual writer, actually, and I think that comes from the playwriting background. Like with “Temper,” which is my debut and it’s set in the theater scene in Chicago, I wrote the whole first draft of that book almost like a play script. Like, it was just dialogue and a few stage directions, and even still, when I write a first draft of something now, it’s like they’re in a black box. So I’ll just write and then I’m like, ‘and then they skate’ and then I have to go back and really kind of choreograph it in my mind and everything.

Something I found helpful was, I was thinking about, because mostly writing Kat’s point of view, like, how would she think of it? Like, how would she describe it? So I ended up reading a lot of music writing, because I thought she would really think in terms of musical terms. In high school, I played the clarinet or whatever, but, like, I haven’t really studied music theory or anything like that. And she hasn’t either. But I thought that would just be her frame of reference. So I read a lot of music writing, dance writing, and just tried to pick things that sounded evocative, not just in the word choice, but even the structure of the sentences, like if they’re moving faster, I wanted the sentences to move faster and things like that.

Q: Now, we’re here in Lake Placid for Skate America, who are you most excited to see this weekend among the ice dance teams?

A: Carreira and Ponomarenko, and we saw them at the coffee shop earlier and I was trying to be cool. I was like, “oh my god.” I’m excited to see them. I’m excited to see what changes Chock and Bates have made because I heard they made some changes, especially to the like bullfighting program. And then Lopareva and Brissaud. I am so glad their costumes are blue now. Because when they came on those red costumes, I was like….

Q: I honestly have to say, I was I kind of applauded the red costumes because I was like, you know what? You do you.

A: Who are you most excited to see?

Q: Among the ice dance scenes, CPom, obviously. And then anytime I get to see Jason Brown skate, it is just a joy.

A: I love Jason Brown.

Q: Yeah, he did he did Riverdance at practice yesterday and it was just delightful.

A: You know the story about how Jason Brown, like, saved this book, right?

Q: No. Okay. Okay, now we need to hear that.

A: I originally, because my first two books are thrillers, when I started writing what would become “The Favorites,” I was still trying to make it this really dark twisted book and it had like a really messed up ending, like...

Q: I mean, it does get pretty messed up.

A: It was so much worse. Like people died, there was like, I was… yeah. So I was trying to make it really dark and twisty, but it wasn’t feeling authentic. It was almost feeling like I was just trying to make it edgy for the sake of it, but I couldn’t figure out how to end it otherwise. And then my partner and I went to see Stars on Ice in Chicago and Jason was there, obviously, and a lot of other great skaters, and I was just so taken by the joy that they had as they were skating.

That was the first time I’d ever seen live skating. I just watched it on TV until then. And I was just so overwhelmed by how joyful they were. And Jason especially, he’s just like a ray of light. So he performed and then I like turned to my partner and was like, it has to have a happy ending. It has to be happy. There has to be joy. So, if it were not for Jason Brown, this book would probably have a really depressing ending and I don’t think it would have done so well, to be honest.

Q: Now I’m going to skip ahead in my questions and pivot just to piggyback off of that. One of the things that you have said in previous events I’ve been to, and one of the things that I read about in reviews is that people hate the ending, and why do you think that is?

A: I think there are a couple reasons. It’s very love or hate. Like, a lot of people do love it, but a lot of people, I think it’s just an expectations thing because there’s been a lot of confusion about what the genre of this book is, and I don’t know what the genre of this book is. But I know I did not intend to write it as a traditional romance. Like that was not, it is a love story. It’s about like the relationship between Kat and Heath, but it’s based on Wuthering Heights and would we call Wuthering Heights a romance? I personally would not.

So I think people will pick it up expecting the traditional “happily ever after” resolution and, you know, it is, I think, a happy ending. It’s not what they were expecting. And so they just get really mad and send me emails.

Q: And you posted about this the other day on Instagram, but the Good Reads Readers Choice Awards came out, and this is nominated in the romance category. Which, again, seems confusing for people who expect a happily ever after, and it does not quite have that.

A: I know, and it looks so funny, and like we were talking about this, when you look at all the covers, like all the rest of them are very clearly romance novels, like the cute animated covers. And then this. I’m like, one of these things is not like the other. Yeah, it’s been so funny. I posted about it and was kind of like, don’t vote for me, vote for a real romance novel, and then everyone’s been like, I’m voting for you. I’m like, thank you. No, it’s lovely. I mean, it really just, it shows the reader engagement and everything, but I do not consider it a genre romance.

A: Have you have you heard from any ice dancers, current ice dancers about the book?

A: A few, yeah. I know Karina Manta read it, and Isabella Flores read an ARC, and she was like, it was really accurate. That was like, that was early on because that was a big sigh of relief for me because I tried so, so hard to make it accurate, but to hear from someone who actually is in the sport that it was, I was like, okay, fine. I can relax now.

Q: I don’t know if they’ve read it yet, but I did personally recommend it to Madison and Evan.

A: I don’t think they have a lot of time for reading, but maybe after this season.

Q: Obviously, all the skaters in the book are fictional. But every event that happens in the book happens in the place that happened in real life and at the time it happened in real life. How important was it to you to ground the book in that reality?

A: It was just really helpful for me to know, like, I kind of just made myself a schedule and was like, okay, we’re gonna hit these points. But it was almost like a little lazy thing because then I didn’t have to pick another [venue]. I was just like, oh, they’re in, you know, France or whatever. And it was as part of my research, I not only figured out like that schedule, but if I could find that the event schedule for that that competition and like the times and everything, I would use that too. And there were certain scenes that really impacted it, like the scene around the middle of the book where they’re in St. Louis for nationals and the ice dance final was really in real life on Friday the 13th. And as soon as I saw that, I was like, ah. So there were little things like that where I would find something for real life and it would just make the scene come alive to me in a different way, but mostly it was just that I didn’t think about making it fictional, but then that would have just been so many places and times and whatever. Don’t know. Just use real life as a shortcut.

Q: So, once again, you’ve set me up perfectly. You mentioned St. Louis. That scene, for those of you who read it, you know what happens for those of you who haven’t, you’re going to get to that scene and be like, “oh my God.” That’s one of my favorite scenes. Nationals is back in St. Louis this season. How excited are you to be in the building where that happened?

A: So excited. I’m already imagining making like an Instagram video that’s like, ‘and then he rushed out from there, on the ice,’ like narrating it like with no one there. I’m gonna be a huge dork about it. I cannot wait.

Q: So I double checked, and in all of the pages of this book, there is one explicit reference to Lake Placid. Do you know what it is?

A: Okay, so I did not cheat. I saw that question. I was like, ‘I could look it up, but I won’t.; Is it… I’m not 100% about this. Is it when Sheila is talking about the the father of the twins and who was the gold medalist? He was a gold medalist in Lake Placid. 1980. She doesn’t remember his name, but she remembers that he won the gold medal.

Q: Yeah, in ‘80 and ‘84. Now, you don’t mention that it was in Lake Placid, but you mentioned that Kat and Heath won Skate America in 2009, which was here. What, what I found out is that that was, in real life, the last gold medal that Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto won. So how do you feel about erasing that from history in your book?

A: I feel great! No, I actually, I love Belbin and Agosto a lot, and they were a team that I looked at a lot in my research as well. Kind of because they were in the time that this book is set, the top US ice dance team. So I did look at a lot of what their results were. But I did try to, the one I couldn’t totally erase was at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, I had like a Canadian team win, even though it’s not Tessa and Scott. But I was like, I just can’t fully take this from Canada. I named one of them after my literary agent.

Q: Now, Kat went through a lot of drama in her career, including, at one point, a shocking comeback. What do you think Kat Shaw would have to say about the comebacks that we have seen this season?

A: It would depend if she was competing or not. If she wasn’t competing, I don’t think she’d care, but if she was competing, she would be like, “my comeback was justified, but not you. You stay away.”

Q: I personally feel like one of the things I’ve heard from people who’ve read the book or reading reviews is is everyone says like, “oh my god, there’s so much drama. Like they’re so over the top.” Do you ever get the urge to just point to this season and be like, “See?!”

A: Yes. Well, what’s funny is anyone who is a skating fan or a skater does not say that to me. It’s all the people who work like normal adult jobs. They’re just like “they’re professional athletes. There is no way they would behave like this. There’s no way.” And I’m just like, “listen.” But anyone who follows skating closely at all, I think the thing where I, if anything, I tone down some of the drama. But then the thing that maybe is like straining credulity for some people is that it all happens to Kat and Heath. I think in real life it’s spread out. But they’re also just kind of asking for it sometimes. They really attract the drama to themselves.

Q: Because I just remember when the ShibSibs announced their comeback, I was like, “they’re just copying what Layne wrote.”

A: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s pretty clear that Bella and Garrett are based somewhat on the ShibSibs. That’s not a shock. But I would always say, oh, they’re based on them, but I don’t think they’re as scheming as Bella. And I’m like…

Q: Well... now we saw that video…

A: I’m like, Garrett Lin would never! Garrett Lin is a sweetie pie. The one nice person I’ve ever written.

Q: If anything, I feel like it would be the reverse. Bella would have absolutely done that to Garrett.

A: For sure, for sure. She would have like, “you need to be a champion” or whatever. Yes, she would have.

Q: If they were in their primes and skating in 2026, do you think the teams of Lin/Lin and Shaw/Rocha would be metal contenders this year?

A: I think they’d lose to GuiLo. But I think, yeah, they can end up on the podium. I think like they’d be battling for bronze between the two of them. And you know how Kat and Heath feel about winning bronze.

Q: That’s why the Kat and Heath friendship bracelet is bronze.

A: Wow. Way harsh. Just noticed that.

Q: Now, another thing I’ve seen people say is that every major character in the book, with maybe the exception of Garrett, was toxic. How would you assess that assessment?

A: Yeah, that’s true. That’s just, I mean, okay, so I used to have a podcast called Unlikable Female Characters. This is like very much my brand. All my female characters certainly are kind of bitchy, kind of scheming, manipulative, all that good stuff. And then, like writing Garrett, that was a challenge to myself. Can I write one good man? One, because Heath is, you know, he’s got his problems. And that’s probably the only one, that’s it. It’s the only one I’ll ever write.

Q: Now, you mentioned writing bitchy female characters, and I’m not gonna mention the one that I find to be the bitchiest in the book because it’s a major spoiler. But the second most, just that tone is Jane Currer. How did you develop her specific voice? Because I feel like, particularly in the documentary scenes, there are times when, unless you see the name or if you’re listening to audiobook, obviously they have different voices, you’re like, “oh, wait, who said that?” With Jane, it is always, “oh, that was Jane.” Because she’s awful.

A: Yeah, I just wanted her to be the voice of like the old school skating establishment. So like anything I read in any articles or memoirs or interviews or whatever where skaters or people involved in the sport were talking about someone who’d been like, “oh, no, you need to follow this outdated rule or convention” or, like, “you know, young ladies don’t behave like that” or whatever, like that voice of very conservative, old school like proper. Yeah, I was thinking of, like, Emily Gilmore a little bit too, love her, but... Like, just sort of like a WASPy lady who’s very judgmental.

And then I named her Jane Currer because… okay, so I love Emily Brontë, but I have beef with Charlotte Brontë. So Jane is after Jane Eyre, and Currer was Charlotte’s pen name, her anonymous pen name when she first started writing, and she was always trying to smooth over Emily’s rough edges and be like, “well, she didn’t know what she was doing when she wrote this” and so that was why I named that character after her. And then... the other character who we won’t mention, because it is the spoiler, also has like a name I gave her for petty literary beef reasons.

Q: And it’s so funny reading, because she has a very distinctive voice too. And throughout, particularly the interview segments, once you get the end of the book, you’re like, “oh, she was… okay.”

A: She wasn’t in the interview portions until after the book sold and I was doing revisions. I needed to put her in there to have, and she was so fun to write in this interview portions because she, yeah, again, the spoilers, but she just, writing a character who’s like trying to seem really nice, but like isn’t, is always a really fun challenge.

Q: And then, of course, there’s just the guy I love, Ellis Dean. What was your reaction when you landed Johnny Weir for the audiobook?

A: I’m still in disbelief and I still, he’s here. We need to try to… She said I should just yell “Ellis Dean!” at him to get him to pay attention to me. See how that goes. I might get thrown out of Skate America. No, that was totally, like, I based the character, basically, the character of Ellis Dean is like Johnny Weir meets Perez Hilton. Like, 100%. His fashion and everything, I based on Johnny, and when it came time to cast the audiobook, the producers always ask you if you have anyone in mind, and it’s usually more for, like, like, oh, someone who sounds like this.

So I mentioned Johnny in that spirit of like, Ellis should sound like Johnny Weir. And then they decided to just take it to him and see if he was interested, which I never thought, like, I was just like, oh, that’s so cool. He’ll know the book exists. He’ll know I brought this character based on him. I hope he’s flattered. No way he’ll do it, though. And then, he did, and I still can’t believe it. And after he said, yes, I would like, before they recorded it, there were like a few weeks in between and I would just sort of like sit straight up at night and be like, “oh my God,” remembering things that I was going to have him say, actual Olympian Johnny Weir. I think he had fun.

Q: It definitely comes through on the audio that he seems like he was having fun with it. And there was a recent update to the audiobook and you landed your dream casting for Heath Rocha as well.

A: I did. Yeah. keep manifesting. And like, I need to manifest a hot woman at some point. All these men. But yeah, so I’ve been from, like, when the book came out, when people ask a lot who would you want to be cast in this if it was on the screen? And I would always say for Heath, this actor, Brandon Perea, who he’s in the movie “Nope” and “Twisters,” who’s on the TV show, “The OA.” And he looks like Heah in my mind and also has a background in jam skating, which is like breakdance slash roller skating, which seems like he should be able to ice skate, maybe? Don’t know.

But I kept mentioning him so many times, I was like, this dude is going to take out a restraining order against me. Oh my god. But he saw. He did. It got back to him eventually, and he was just really nice. He’s like slid into my Instagram DMs and thanked me. And then when it came time to cast… so in the paperback, there are some bonus chapters from Heath’s perspective, kind of covering the time when he and Kat are apart that we don’t get to see in “The Favorites.” And they wanted to cast an actor. So I suggested him and then like DM’d him and asked, and he was totally into it, and he did an amazing job.

Q: Now, again, in this lovely new paperback release, we get those Heath chapters. How did you decide to format them as letters?

A: That came about because I knew the time periods I wanted to cover and I knew what happened. And then when I started trying to write it and Heath’s voice, just kind of like I’d written Kat’s voice, it didn’t sound right. It sounded weird and like stilted and I was just like, this isn’t him. What going on? So then I started writing it as letters. He’s writing in his head to Katerina. He’s like speaking to her, and all of a sudden it just flowed and was so easy, which was a relief and was also like, I was like, dude, you’re so obsessed with her, you need to calm down. It’s kind of pathetic. Like, please get therapy, you fictional character.

So the story is called “Dear Katerina,” and each letter is paired with a song because Heath is very into music and that’s sort of how he expresses his emotions. I had a lot of fun picking out those songs as well.

Q: I realized I did I left this off of my list of questions for you, but I had this question, since you mentioned the songs, one of the key songs at a key moment late in the book is Taylor Swift’s “The Last Time.” I personally find that to be her most underrated song. So I’m curious how you landed on that.

A: That came about, so first I wrote that scene with Bella and Kat skating to the “Red” album and I picked “Red” just because it was the one that would have been the newest one at the time. And then when I was trying to figure out what they were going to skate to at their big Olympic moment at the end, I was like, oh, it’d be cool if it was something from “Red.” So I listened to the whole thing again. And then once I heard “The Last Time,” I was like, it’s so perfect. The lyrics match up so well.

People ask me a lot, if I planned the whole book around that song. And I’m like, no, it came really, really late in the process, but it was one of those, I mean, you probably know this from writing about skating. It’s like, after a while you start hearing songs and you just see choreography. Like that still happens to me a lot. And as soon as that song came on, I was like, oh, I can just see it. I can see them spinning. So it worked out really well.

Q: And with it being a duet, it’s just so natural for the two of them.

A: Yeah. I love that song. It is very underrated.

Q: Now, before I turn it over to the audience for their questions, I have to ask, is there any chance we will ever see “The Favorites” on screen?

A: Yeah. It’s been optioned for a movie. It was optioned for TV and then that didn’t work out because, you know, Hollywood. And now I just signed a new option deal to make it a movie and I think they’re interested in sort of like, I don’t know if it would be the story from the book in multiple movies or just sort of expanding it to other characters. I told them I wanted to do a Sheila Lin prequel in the ‘80s. So everyone manifest that. Yeah, so fingers crossed, they seem really motivated. They’re great, and I know Brandon wants to do it.

Q: As you said, you have the theater background and with the documentary scenes, obviously because I work for ESPN, I’m reading this, I’m like, oh, this would be a 30 for 30 and it would just, it would kill. Like, people would eat this up.

A: Yeah. I loved, I watched the Nancy and Tonya 30 for 30 a lot while I was working on this. It was a good one.

Q: All right, so turning it over to the audience. You just mentioned watching resources and research for this book. Do you have any favorite resources that maybe still watch like podcasts or like YouTube videos that you return to?

A: I mean, that 30 for 30 about Nancy and Tonya. I really love The Runthrough. Going to their taping thing later. I love the way, like the kind of snarky way they talk about it, without being super mean. There’s The Technical Panel on YouTube that shows like they explains all the ice dance elements. I still go back to that a lot when I’m like, wait, what is this one again? And then, I need to make a YouTube playlist of all of my favorite programs because people ask about that a lot, but I do go back and watch like Tessa and Scott’s Moulin Rouge, and Hubbell and Donohue, Caught Out in the Rain, and some of those classic classic classic ice dance programs. What’s your favorite ice dance program of all time?

Q: Oh, it’s Tessa and Scott Moulin Rouge. I feel like you have to say that, but there are also some great Piper and Paul ones that I love. And then not a competitive program, but the program that Gabi and Madison skated together is just… and I got to see Gabi skate it with Alissa Czisny in New Hampshire earlier this year. And it’s just so magical.

A: And as far as books, it came out after I was done with “The Favorites,” but Gracie Gold’s memoir, if I could have had that while I was working on this book, it’s so good. So that’s like the one I recommend to everyone, whether or not they’re a big skating fan. Just like everyone needs to read this because she has so much to say about how women are treated.

Q: Have you read Karina’s memoir?

A: Yes. Yeah. I got her to sign it at the theater on ice thing that I went to. She’s great.

Q: This book has such a strong real cast of figures. How did you balance it? I feel like every chapter I was mad at someone new and it was like never too mad at anyone at any point. How do you balance that?

A: Oh, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I just really, I try to, even though they are making terrible decisions a lot. Like, I will not defend, like, when people are like, “they made me so mad and I, like, was just infuriated by their choices.” I’m like, yeah, absolutely.

I tried to really understand their psychology. I’m married to a therapist and he helped me figure out some stuff about their attachment styles and childhood trauma. And so, I just tried to make it come from a real place within them that they’re not just doing it to be mean or to be, but it’s coming from an insecurity or like a internal wound or something. So I think it’s like you can kind of understand where they’re coming from, even though you’re like, “why are you doing this? Please stop.”

Q: On that, was there anything you wrote in early drafts that you took out where you’re like, “oh, I can’t put this in because that character can’t come back from this.”

A: No, put it all in there. I was trying to think.

Q: Because I mean, some of the things that they do to each other, even some of the side characters, it feels unforgivable, but they always end up coming back to each other.

A: Yeah, I think they just, especially when it comes to Kat and Bella, who are very controversial, but they understand each other so much that even if Bella does something you might think is unforgivable to Kat — we won’t say what, there’s several things you could choose from — Kat’s upset, but she’s also like, “I would have done that too. Like, I get it. I get it, girl.” So they can’t, it’s like they get each other on that level and they can’t stay mad. Plus, like, who else is gonna put up with them? It’s just each other.

And I always thought of it in terms of, in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is, I mean, he’s a rapist. He abuses his wife. He kills a puppy. Like they didn’t do any of that. I didn’t kill a puppy. It’s fine.

Q: Okay, related to Wuthering Heights. So when you’re talking about how it was a romance, if a lot of people were like, or not a romance, sorry. A lot of people were like, “I thought it would be a happy ending.” I was coming from Wuthering Heights and being like, “this is a really happy ending.” Why didn’t you kill them?

A: Well, so in early drafts, I did kill Heath and Bella.

Q: Like, how did it happen, or were they just dead?

A: It was basically the same thing that happens to Heath, but he like didn’t make it. I thought about doing, like, when I first decided to make it to Wuthering Heights, retelling, I thought about doing the two generations thing where it was like their kids. And then I was just like, no, it’s modern times. We understand psychology and trauma more now. They could like go to therapy, like let’s have them work it out in this generation.

I mean, the real answer, though, is Jason Brown. He inspired me to make it have a happy ending because otherwise I really, I was gonna kill them and make it really dark.

Q: I finished it, and I was like, I can’t believe they’re not dead. I thought they were gonna die the whole time.

A: I did still try to, by not having certain characters in the documentary and kind of like foreshadowing. I did kind of play with that a little bit. But it was Jason Brown, and it was also just, I was writing this during COVID, and I couldn’t write something that depressing, for my own mental health. I just couldn’t do it. I’m glad I didn’t. But you were not the first person who said that because, I thought they were all gonna die. I kind of wanted them to die actually.

Q: I just want to say, I actually haven’t read the book yet, but I just bought it at the bookstore next door and by pure coincidence, the only other book I bought was Wuthering Heights.

A: Amazing.

Q: I just walked in from the bookstore with those two books, and then you started talking about Wuthering Heights, and I was like, that felt very strange. Yeah, meant to be, I guess.

A: Wait, so have you not read Wuthering Heights before?

Q: I have, but it’s been a very long time. I haven’t read your book yet, so it’s not like I read it and then was inspired to buy Wuthering Heights again. It’s such a crazy coincidence.

A: Now I want to know what edition of Wuthering Heights you got, because I collect them. Yeah, show me because I... Ah, yes.

Q: Evidently, they go really well together.

A: Such a good combo!

Q: I have to admit that I had not read Wuthering Heights since school. And so it wasn’t until about a third of the way into the book that it clicked for me. I was like, “oh my god, I cannot believe I did not… Kat, Heath, The Heights. How did I not see this?”

A: Yeah. I’ve had people get all the way through the book who’ve read Wuthering Heights and not get it. And they’re like, wait, what? But I think that also explains why they’re all so terrible and dramatic and they’re Wuthering Heights, gothic romance.

Q: So how do you explain all the characters in your other books who are terrible and dramatic?

A: I’m terrible and dramatic.

Q: I was gonna say, those of us who found our way to the book, because it was recommended on Reddit, because somebody’s like, “what books about skating actually get it right?” Because we all know there’s some pretty, there’s a lot of crud out there. But there’s not much out there, but almost all of it other than your book is crud. So somebody actually mentioned that that connection. So yeah, I too, at the end, was like, okay, where’s the death? Even though I hadn’t read it since high school. I remembered that part. But I think you handled it well. I mean it made sense. It wasn’t like you, or like, you manipulated it. You just, it worked. Like, this is how it would could very plausibly happen.

A: Thank you. Yeah, I try to I wanted it to be kind of a bittersweet, complicated ending where it’s maybe not them getting everything they thought they wanted, but they’re getting what they actually need. That’s my favorite kind of ending in any book.

Q: There seemed to be some sense of peace and resolution.

A: Yeah. Yeah. They just need to, like, relax for a second. Yeah. But I did see that Reddit thread and then I had to, because I lurk on the figure skating subreddit and have for years and I had to like take a break after that. I was like, okay, they’re talking about my book now. Not for me anymore. But I’m glad people liked it.

Q: At least as of when I saw it, it was all very complimentary. You would not have cringed. Unless praise makes you cringe.

A: It does sometimes, yeah.

Q: I really love the character of Ellis Dean. He made me laugh so often. Did you laugh writing it. Did you just giggle to yourself?

A: Oh, yeah, 100%. And he was like, my secret weapon. Obviously, for someone who’s reading this, who doesn’t know anything about ice dance, I had to get a lot of information in there. And so if there was something really boring that I had to explain, I just had Ellis explain it and then it was fine. But him and Inez Acton, who’s in the documentary, were my two favorite characters to write, and Inez especially was my self-insert, like, the things that I would say, if I was in that documentary.

Ellis is just, ugh, he was so, so, so much fun to write. And I was just imagining Johnny’s voice in my head as I was writing him.

Q: Speaking of the documentary, that was my favorite part of the book. It balanced everything so while. Was that always a part of writing?

A: It was. It took a while to figure out the right balance of not too much, not too little and how to put it in there. At first when I was working on the documentary portions, it was a little more, felt more like an oral history, like Daisy Jones, where it was just dialogue, and then I started describing the documentary visuals, which was a lot of fun. So, yeah, it took me a while to find that right balance, but that was always part of it because I knew I needed to explain a lot of things and I wanted it to feel like this look back, as opposed to happening in real time. Also, from it being inspired by Wuthering Heights, that book is told through other characters, not through the main characters. So it’s like people commenting on them and I wanted that feeling of other people’s opinions about these two.

Q: What character is most like yourself?

A: I mean, Inez for sure is a lot like me. As far as like the main characters, probably Kat. I’m not as manipulative as Bella, because I wish I was. Like, she’s really... But Kat’s sort of scrappy Midwestern determination, I relate to, though, I could never be an athlete like her.

Q: How long did it take you to write the book?

A: Well, there was a year and a half of existential crisis and trying to write those two books that didn’t work. And then after I figured out the Wuthering Heights connection and everything about a year and a half after that. So three years all told, but a year and a half of it really writing this.

Q: And then how long after you had finished, was it ‘til publication? Because I’m learning now that that process is not easy and takes forever.

A: Yeah, it sold really quickly, which is unusual. It sold in like a week, which is, that never happens. But it was like another year and a half before publication. I sold in May 2023. Yeah, May 2023 and then it came out in January 2025.

Q: Did you have an agent?

A: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Q: Do you have a favorite line from the book?

A: Um, that whole, okay, so it’s not just a line, I guess, but that part towards the beginning, where Kat is talking about when she first saw Sheila Lin on TV and that she was like a warrior goddess covered in glitter, that part, that’s my favorite bit of writing I’ve probably ever done. love it so much.

Q: My favorite line, I remembered to bookmark it, is our buddy Ellis Dean. “Imagine being down so bad, you’d master a whole Olympic sport to spend time with someone.”

A: Yeah. Like, I like that line too, but it’s funny because the people who think this is romance novel will quote that like it’s romantic, and I’m like, no, that is a cry for help. You need therapy. Men will literally master a whole Olympic sport before going to therapy.

Q: Or before just saying like, hey, Kat, I like you. Would you like to go out sometime?

A: No, no, I’ve got to be her ice dance partner.

Q: Speaking of lines, Wuthering Heights has a lot of really iconic lines in it. Did you try and incorporate them into the book or like play with that at all?

A: The one that I tried to kind of pay homage to, because it’s my favorite, is the “Haunt me then.” So they skate to the song, “Haunt Me” by Sade, and that was totally because of that.

Q: There was some connections where I was like, am I reaching or was this all purpose?

A: They’re probably on purpose, but now I want to know your list.

Q: I thought Jane Currer. I got the Currer reference. I thought Jane was kind of a reference to Joseph from because he’s like very into the Bible.

A: Josie is named after Joseph. Ellis’s partner. Josie Hayworth, and Hayworth is, I don’t know why, but it’s like the church where the Bronte’s father was a pastor. So there’s a lot of nerdy, nerdy, like English literature deep cuts in there. And probably my favorite kind of twisted one is Kat at one point, oh, it’s at worlds in Russia. She picks up a stuffed puppy off the ice and is like throttling it and that’s a tribute to Heathcliff strangling a puppy. Which Heath Roach would never do, but I put it in there?

Q: What’s the nerdiest ice dance Easter egg that you got in there?

A: Oh, man. Hmm. Now I can’t remember. It’s hard for me to remember what I made up and what I didn’t at this point. Yeah, I can’t think of anything.

Q: For me, it was it was that the Canadian team won in 2010.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, that was, I just couldn’t totally take that from Tessa and Scott. But I did make it like, in the book, it’s like a surprise that they win. They’re like the underdogs versus Tessa and Scott, although they were kind of because they were so young.

Yeah. Oh, actually, okay, here’s one. So when Ellis and Josie go to the Torino Games and just totally flop and fall at the end of the program and Josie’s like glaring daggers at him. Do you know what that’s based on from the actual Torino games? Barbara [Fusar Poli]. Because they get through the program and then at the very end fall and she’s just looking at her partner, like, I am gonna kill you. I’m gonna kill you. And she’s taught that look to Charlene now, which I think is nice. That’s the one. I got that in there.

Q: Was Sheila’s Red, White, and Gold party based on anything from your research or was that just all you?

A: I just made that up. It just sounded like…

Q: It feels like “oh, someone has to have something like that.”

A: If they did, it’s like very secret and we didn’t know about it. So maybe there is.

I’ll never get invited now.

Q: Maybe if Johnny throws a party, he’ll invite you.

A: Yes.

Q: So you’ve never met Johnny in person?

A: No, not in person. He DM’d me on Instagram once and I almost like dropped my phone in my cereal. I was eating breakfast and it popped up.

Q: Well, hopefully between now and 48 hours from now, that will be rectified.

A: I hope so. I hope so. I’m going to nationals in St. Louis too, so I have another chance.

Q: I met him at Worlds, and I hadn’t listened to the audiobook yet, but I knew he had voiced Ellis, and I told him I was excited to listen to it, and he said he had such a fun time recording it.

A: Oh, that’s so nice. Yeah, it really does sound like he had fun. I think the funniest question I ever get asked about this book is when people are like, “do you think Johnny knows that you based this character on him?” Like, yeah, I think you can tell. I was not subtle.

Q: Well, this has been amazing. Any more questions? Can you just give us a preview if anything’s on the table? What can we look forward to?

A: I am working on another book that may have something to do with skating. I can’t really say anything else. I tell you more later. Still kind of a secret, but hopefully we’ll be announcing it in the next few months and it should be out in 2027.

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For the record, Layne did tell me more about her next novel, and you are going to be so excited when the details get announced. You can buy The Favorites wherever books are sold in hardcover or paperback, and it’s also available as a full-cast audiobook.