Meet Freja Lindholm
She never intended to fall in love with Chloé LaFleur, but it was the best thing that ever happened to her.
Last week, I introduced you to Chloé LaFleur, the star of my figure skating romance novel “The Ice Between Us.” So it’s only fair that this week I introduce you to her love interest, Freja Lindholm.
The novel is dual POV, so it’s as much Freja’s story as it is Chloé’s, though Freja would be the first to tell you that she doesn’t have much of a story to tell.
Freja is a 28-year-old skater from Sweden, who has been on the show-skating circuit for about a decade. She’s entering her seventh season with “Seasons on Ice,” where for the past four seasons, she’d portrayed the starring role of the Snow Queen in the show’s closing winter segment.
Prior to becoming a show skater, Freja was a pairs skater in her native Sweden. However, her height — five-foot-ten, even before she puts her skates on — limited her success in competition. She frequently had to change partners, as she outgrew them in her teen years. She ended her competition career after a costume malfunction forced her to withdraw from Swedish nationals in 2017.
Freja knew she was gay from a young age, but her coaches encouraged her to keep it quiet, so it wouldn’t impact her scores with the judges. They came up with the idea of Freja having a “rule” that she didn’t date skaters to prevent people from asking too many questions about why she wasn’t in a relationship with her pairs partner.
That led to Freja having something of a reputation as an “ice queen,” even before she landed her current role. She’s definitely frosty when Chloé arrives and joins the cast. However, her brother, who plays in the NHL, knows that she’s just waiting for the right person to come along. Could that person be Chloé?
(I mean, obviously it is, it’s a romance novel!)
As some of you know, when I originally wrote this story, Chloé and Freja skated for Disney on Ice, and Freja portrayed the role of Elsa. A lot of her personality was based on that, so it was an easy decision to make her the “Snow Queen,” when I had to change their show to a fictional one of my own creation.
If you have any questions about Chloé, Freja, or any of the story, I’m happy to answer them in the comments.