You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO request comes to us from Janine, who has a pretty tough challenge for the Bitchery:
HaB) helped me out once before, so I’m hoping for good luck again…I think this one might be tougher though.
Part of the challenge is that I didn’t read this as a book – it was one of the romance novels abridged in Good Housekeeping back in the 1980s.
This was a pairs ice skating romance. The hero was older and I think already successful in skating, but due to Reasons (which I don’t recall) needed a new partner. The heroine didn’t have a lot of experience with pairs skating but was very talented.
The two bits I clearly remember are that the heroine simultaneously was in college, working at least one job if not more, and also training in skating, and then finally her partner and coach convince her that she has to let some of it go so she can train properly. (Maybe this triggers a “living together” situation with the hero?) I also remember a bit of dialogue where the hero yells at the heroine for not wearing a leotard under her sweater, because if he goes to do a lift, his cold hands on her bare skin will make her flinch and he might drop her. This is one of those old school romances where the hero acts for quite a while that he doesn’t like the heroine, but then he comes around.
I have been looking for this for years with no luck. My mom kept the magazine for the recipes for a while, but then tossed it during a move.
I wonder if someone knows the full-length title because this seems right up my alley and I don’t know if I can get my hands on an 80s edition of Good Housekeeping.
Could this be Reluctant Partnership by Elizabeth Ashton? It’s a Harlequin Romance published in April 1980. The description is pretty short:
“Sonya would never succeed on her own!
But for her father’s sake she had to keep on trying. “`Sonya had been raised in the world of figure skating. Her parents were famous before the accident that claimed her mother’s life and left her father crippled. Now all that Eliot Vincent lived for was to see his daughter become a champion.
Then Sven Petersen, a star in his own right, asked Sonya to partner him in his return to pairs skating. It was a chance she couldn’t afford to turn down.”
Susan Andersen has an ice-skating book, but after the 80’s I’m pretty sure. She reissued it in ebook a few years ago, but I don’t know the original date.
Maybe Ice Castles? But I think she goes almost-blind?
Thin Ice was the Susan Anderson skating book pubbed in 2002 — I think it was a romantic suspense?
While Ice Castles had a love story, she was a singles skater, not pairs.
I don’t know the name of the book, but I have to give a shout out to reading abridged romance novels in Good Housekeeping. My Grandma never threw them out, so I always knew if the book I brought wasn’t long enough, I could always fall back on a little romance. I would flip right to the solid-colored pages! The only one I remember was Daughter of the Red Deer, which was QUITE the thing to read as a pre-teen, since it involves bride kidnapping. Good times.
I’m pretty sure this is “Winners: A Love Story,” by Donna Ball. I read a library copy of it when I was in high school, which would have been the early 1980s. I remember the bit with the cold hands and the sweater.
The fiction database, which says the book was published in 1982 gives the following plot description:
“Neither Lee nor Tammy wish to abandon individual figure skating pairs competition but their coach insists that they skate together just once and they are magic, a beautiful, perfectly suited pair. They graduate from small championships to the ultimate challenge, the Olympics, but just as the final triumph seems within their reach, they find that a cruel twist of fate may jeopardise everything they have worked for.”
@LauraN by Joan Wolf? Sounds interesting. Never new about Prehistoric romance, other than Auel. Thanks.
@MMVZ That’s the one! I can’t speak to how well it’s held up, but it blew my pre-teen mind, since the girls who are kidnapped were all quite young as well. Also, the priestess’ daughter is one of the girls who get kidnapped, so there’s some stuff with culture clash because their culture is matriarchal and the tribe that kidnaps them (their women all died somehow? Disease or something.) is patriarchal. Sparks fly! That and Auel are the only prehistoric romances I know as well. Hope you enjoy it!
Transcendence by Shay Savage is prehistoric romance. There is time travel, which might disqualify it for purists, but it’s about 90% in the prehistoric characters view point.
Must find ice skating romance now! This is so up my alley.
@LauraN – Oh my god, I totally remember reading Daughter of the Red Deer in Good Housekeeping. I think that story lead me right to Auel’s books.
I scrounged up the full version of one of the other GH stories and was so disappointed I never bothered to look up any of the others for fear of ruining my good memories.
I think Winners might be it! Once I had a title and author to work from, I found an eBay listing that shows the full jacket copy and blurb, and it sounds familiar. There are some copies on Amazon so I am definitely going to order one and check it out! And even if not, I now have some alternate prehistoric/ice-skating options as well. (How come nobody has written a prehistoric ice-skating novel yet? Prehistoric people ice-skate their way to safety when the Ice Age glaciers threaten their village…)
Thanks, everybody! You are amazing!
Kinda confused by the pre-historic time travel romances mentioned.
My contribution is this: Have you tried contacting Good Housekeeping? I have good success recovering lost but beloved recipes from newspapers and magazines in the past.
How do you submit a book that you want to find????
@pebee: Go to this handy dandy email form and select, “I’m looking for a book! (HaBO)” from the subject drop down menu.
@Dianna Here’s your random six degrees: I found out a few weeks ago that Shay Savage is a friend of mine from high school with whom I am no longer in touch (obviously, or I might have known sooner).
@moody It’s good to hear from someone who shares that memory. I’m not sure it would have hit me as hard if I had been older when I read it–the concept of girls my own age being kidnapped for replacement brides was completely wild to me. I mean, I’d seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but the book definitely felt more real. I’m scared to reread it, though.
For anyone interested in reading “Winners,” I have been able to determine that if there is an ebook edition, it is very well hidden. Among the “dead tree” options, there are several used copies available at abebooks.com. I just ordered one. There are also a couple of copies on ebay, but abebooks (at the moment) is cheaper.
Another shout out to reading romance between the covers of Good Housekeeping! Besides stealing my mom’s Harlequins, GH was my other source for romance reads as a child.
Thank you!