** spoiler alert ** via NetGalley. The nature of the end of the book is discussed in this review.

There are really only five characters in this book: Kate and Zoe, who have been friends and rivals for Olympic gold since they were 19 and headed for Athens (they are now 32 and aiming for London); Jack, another Olympian, who met them on the same day and is now married to Kate; Sophie, Jack and Kate's eight-year-old child, battling leukemia; and Tom, Zoe and Kate's coach.

The premise is fantastic: London in 2012 is Kate and Zoe's last shot at Olympic gold. The two have a long and deep history where competition has sometimes trumped friendship. Zoe cares for nothing but winning, as she races to escape an event in her past; Kate is torn between training for gold and taking care of Sophie. It's a perfect setup for an exciting, character-driven novel, and parts of their history - as well as Tom's and Jack's - are revealed with flawless timing and pacing. The twists and turns come at a steady pace, and they are surprising but not improbable.

At various moments throughout the book, the reader is led to fear for each character's life. The author walks the reader up to the brink of tragedy and heartbreak, but then pulls back, relents, and lets them escape. A final section, set three years after the main action of the story, provides a tidy summary and denouement. While I was relieved for the characters, and I didn't feel that the ending was wrong, I was also ready to have my heart broken, and would have accepted a different ending. (However, for those "all's well that ends well" types who are willing to go through some anguishing moments as long as there's a happy ending, this is the book for you.)

*

When he gave the signal, these people's lives would change in ways they couldn't yet know. It would be harder for them than they realized, because outside those two exalted minutes of each race, they were condemned to be ordinary people burdened with minds and bodies and human sentimental attachments that were never designed to accelerate to such velocities. They would go through agonies of decompression, like divers returning too quickly from the deep. They would have this one certain, strange, and mercurial quality, these unknowable people with their eyes hidden behind visors: at exactly the moment they crossed the finish line, they would become human beings just like anyone else. (Tom, 98)

She watched the crowds scatter and wondered which was more frightening: that she was just like other people or that she wasn't. If they all felt how she felt, then how did anyone survive? (Zoe, 128)

"I'm scared I might win. Winning is all she has. I'm nervous what she might do to herself if we leave her with nothing. I'm terrified of what she might do to us." (Kate, 205)

People had their natural habitats, after all, demarcated not in ecologies but in ages. He'd been perfectly adapted to being nineteen, and she was better at being thirty-two. (Jack and Kate, 205)

Her life was one endless loop that she raced around, with steep banked curves so she could never change or slow down. It just delivered her back to herself, over and over and over. (Zoe, 264)

He sat very still. Inside this room now, with the monitors on, time was a diamond cut by Sophie's breathing and polished by her pulse. (Jack, 281)

Her voice was a clockwork doll winding down. (Sophie, 283)

Only later came the shock as Jack realized what the closing of eyes might mean now. His mind was slow to adjust to the situation. It was still reacting to ordinary things according to their ordinary context. It saw his child's eyes closing and it thought rest. It didn't think rest of your life. (Jack, 284-85)

These were the moments you lived in, after all, these rococo twists of time. You could make them last forever, or until you told the truth. (Jack, 286)

He smiled. "You're going to be fine. I promise." This is what he said. (Jack, 294)

He wanted to tell her that, but that was the thing with coaching: you had to step back at exactly the moment you ached to step forward. (Tom, 295)

This final race was the knife that would cut that link between them and send them falling into their separate lives. (Tom, 296)

The body was like that: it had a capacity to hold itself together until it was allowed to fall apart. (Zoe, 314)



From the Author's Note, re: Great Ormond Street Hospital: As a researcher, it was like being embedded with angels.