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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Sunday, July 20, 2025 1:09 am by M. in , ,    No comments
The Favourites is a new novel loosely based on Wuthering Heights:
Layne Fargo
Penguin Books - Chatto & Windus
Published: 16/01/2025 (Hardback) (Paperback in September)
ISBN: 9781784745486

Everyone thinks Heath Rocha was my first love. He wasn’t. My first love was figure skating.

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating – and each other – to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and rollercoaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorised documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the ‘real story’ through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary. But she can't stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy either. So, after a decade of silence, she's telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumours have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.

Alternating Kat’s own account of her dramatic rise and devastating fall with scandalous snippets from the tell-all film, and capturing the can’t-look-away intensity of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, The Favourites is an exhilarating dance between passion, ambition, and what it truly means to win.
The author on National Book Tokens lists her favourite (no pun intended) Wuthering Heights adaptations:
Wuthering Heights is one of the most controversial classic novels, but also one of the most enduring. Whether you love or hate tempestuous central couple Catherine and Heathcliff, you can't help having strong feelings about them – and I, for one, adore them, so much so that I wrote a modern adaptation of their timeless story: The Favourites, which sets the passion and intensity of Wuthering Heights in the cutthroat world of Olympic figure skating. As I was researching, I checked out plenty of other adaptations of Emily Brontë’s novel for inspiration. Here are my personal favourites.

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