Sometimes it feels as though a novel was written just for you. Not just a story in your genre. Not just a book that has the tropes you’re into. Not just something by one of your favorite writers.

No, I’m talking about a book that ticks so many of your literary boxes it feels like the author checked in with you before they were done revising.

I was reminded of this phenomenon while reading The Favorites by Layne Fargo, a contemporary retelling of Wuthering Heights set in the world of elite couples figure skating. It focuses on Heathcliff and Catherine Ernshaw, reimagined in the modern era as Heath Rocha and Katarina Shaw (watch this Instagram Reel for more fun Wuthering Heights name play).

Layne is absolutely one of my favorite authors (I’m privileged to have met her and to be in the same International Thriller Writers debut class). She normally writes novels more squarely in the thriller genre—if you haven’t read Temper or They Never Learn, I recommend rectifying that situation soon—but The Favorites is listed as women’s fiction.

After reading it, I would list it a bit more broadly, though that doesn’t give us an exact label. Publishers Marketplace called it her first work of women’s fiction while labeling it “general/other.” Many call this “commercial fiction,” which is a funny label to me since every novel sold in a bookstore is fiction that is being printed to engage in commerce.

But I get what they mean.

There’s the more amorphous “upmarket fiction,” which I have been known to use. That’s a book with a plot but that’s also written so well it’ll appeal to those who only read literary-grade fiction.

The more colloquial term for upmarket fiction is “book club fiction,” which is what I have settled on for The Favorites. This may be because it was not just chosen to be printed by Book of the Month (which categorized the novel as “contemporary fiction”) and nominated for its yearly Lolly Award—along with shortlists for the Audie Award for best audiobook and Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Romance.

So, we’ve established that The Favorites is not in my usual genre. Then how was it written for me so specifically?

First, the novel is about sports. Many of you know—but some may not—that I began my writing career covering sports for daily newspapers. I never wrote about figure skating, but prose about elite competition is absolutely in my wheelhouse.

Go back farther, and you’ll find that I was a jock in middle and high school. No shock there. But even fewer of you will know that my father and I were both elite athletes in one of the most traditional of Olympic sports: archery.

Though neither of us competed during a summer Olympiad, he held the world indoor archery record for a brief moment in time, and I won a youth national championship.

So, a novel about training for and competing at the Olympics. Check.

The novel is also slightly epistolary in nature. Told primarily in first person by Kat, there are epistolic interstitials in The Favorites, transcribed scenes from a documentary about Heath and Kat (itself named, you guessed it, The Favorites).

I love novels with a little epistolary flare. I have written novels with epistolic interstitials. I enjoy the form and the layers of tension they create.

Which brings me to the last point I’ll make about why this book fell so squarely in my wheelhouse: It was, in fact, a novel of suspense.

In much the way Where The Crawdads Sing was secretly a courtroom murder mystery, The Favorites is a suspenseful novel that is always asking: What terrible events befell Heath and Kat that led to the need for a huge docuseries, anyway?

And, as she has with her other more direct suspense and thriller novels, Layne Fargo delivers on her promises. There are twists—though, as a retelling, those familiar with Emily Brontë’s original text will know many coming—subterfuge, and several wonderful character studies.

I only have one small negative thing to say about the novel, and it can be said about many: There was a section in the second act that felt like it drug down the pace a bit too much.

There was a ton of fun during this fun-and-games portion, but at one point it veered a little too off course, in my opinion, and turned the middle a little saggy. Not for long, and not in a way that ruined anything for me. Just something that my editor brain feels could have been lifted out and not impacted anything.

But that’s really it. I enjoyed the story, the structure, the writing, and the payoffs. The ending was satisfying.

In reading the author/editorial blurbs, there were naturally some comparisons. This is the language that many in my industries use as shorthand, so I’ve become accustomed to using it for all types of entertainment.

THE Jodi Picoult says The Favorites is “Part Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six,” and an NPR review says “Think The Cutting Edge meets Daisy Jones & The Six.”

Obviously it’s Wuthering Heights, and I love DJ6, which totally nails the structure and volatile relationship between the two leads. I hadn’t heard of the movie The Cutting Edge, and I get that comp, though a rom-com is not the vibe I would use.

After finishing The Favorites, my first thought was Wuthering Heights meets I, Tonya—which even has it’s own documentary-style cut-ins, albeit just talking-head interviews. You’ve also got a woman from the rural Midwest trying to compete in this glitzy world of privilege, and a troubled home life and domestic relationship, though a very different kind of trouble than Heath and Kat spiral into.

A Deadline article said they’re looking to make this into a TV show, which makes perfect sense. And, though Layne was adamant there was no sequel, she has announced another related novel, The Ice Queens, is scheduled for a 2027 release.

After reading and loving The Favorites, count me the eff in!