She will sacrifice everything for what she loves the most: the ice rink.
Mariya is a young woman who lives with her mother and older sister, Nastya in Spain. The two sisters are figure skating prodigies. Their mother, who also happens to be their manager, was an ice skater when she was younger, and she is living her dream of becoming a professional through her daughters. However, one thing has always been very clear: Nastya had always been in the spotlight… both her mother´s and the fans´ favorite. Despite the fact that skating is her passion, Mariya is invisible, she lives in Anastasiya’s shadow, and this makes slowly eats away at her and, above all, hurts her. Mariya sees how her sister achieves everything she dreams of. Balancing her studies with a sports career, a demanding mother, and this sibling rivalry is almost an impossible mission.
However, Mariya loved skating more than anything in the world and nothing makes her feel like she does on the ice. What she yearned most for was having her own voice, her own choreography, her own costumes and songs… her own style. Because of this, she decides to value who she is and what she has worked so hard for, and create her own spotlight. With the help of her friend Julia, she musters up the courage to change her choreography, adding higher level twists and turns, and ends up getting everyone’s attention, beating her sister, and qualifying for international competitions. Her mother disowns her for ruining her sister’s chances of qualifying for international competition.
However, for Ari, this is her big chance. For the first time in her life, luck is on her side and she receives the offer she needed to prove to everyone that she can be a great skater, even if she has to go to train in another country (totally unknown to her) like Canada. She leaves behind her former life and even her former name, renaming herself Ari. There, she will feel in the clouds and will find her place among people who will really value her work. She will meet skating figures, and learn from renowned coaches. She will meet the famous Spanish skater Pablo, who will become her right-hand man and roommate during her stay. Pablo will help her navigate this new life filled with press scandals (like the Gossip Skater blog) and high level international competitions. They strike up a wonderful friendship… maybe something more. But when Ari declares her love to him, Pablo will reveal to her his most closely guarded secret. He loves her with all his heart, but he’s gay. He will also discover the worst side of the sport and will have to face its demons. It becomes clear to her that to fight for her dreams and succeed, she has to sacrifice her life for the ice. At the same time she will learn, along the way, the secrets of her family that make her recognize and understand the decisions her mother has made against her all her life, which allows her to reconcile with her.
A story of ambition, hard work, hope, good friends that help us along the way, and how life has kept those valuable and unexpected second chances for when we most need them.
RELEVANT DATA: Alena Pons has worked amidst letters for more than 10 years. She has translated works collaborating on many anthologies and has participated in many young adult novel competitions (becoming a finalist for young adult Catalan novel awards) and is a co-founder for an editorial service company.
Ice and Silver (Hielo y plata) is the author´s first novel. Alena Pons´ writing is visual and provides both entertaining and educational content about ice-skating, like technical terms and the commonplace routines of an ice skater, since she herself is an ice skating technician. It is an emotionally evoking story that narrates the entanglements of an elite ice skater while she competes.
What the critics have said about the novel:
« An addictive debut will thrill ice skating lovers and all those who aren´t as well. » Laia Soler, author
“A novel written with a very agile rhythm, that also provides us with educational data about skating, explained so well that any reader, even if they have no idea about this sport, can perfectly understand it.” MissCultura (literary blog)
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Movie.
LANGUAGES AVAILABLE: Spanish.
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