Ink and Ice

Twin Cities Ice

by Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese

Growing up on an isolated island in the middle of Lake Erie, Aaron Sheftall learned to skate as a young child when extreme weather would cut his off his small community -- and its legends about a lost colony of seals -- from the rest of the world. Now an elite figure skater, Aaron dreams of getting to the Olympics. Yet competition is fierce and in a sport filled with injuries and drama, careers are short. But when a fluke accident changes the stakes for the entire U.S. team, Aaron sees his chance.

Zack Kelly used to be a war reporter. But a successful book about his time covering global conflicts, an unsuccessful marriage, and a dose of PTSD have sidelined him from the journalism game. When an old friend calls up him with a long-form assignment about competitive figure skating, Zack has no idea what he's getting into. He also doesn't care -- it's a change of scenery and a paycheck.

Thrown together under circumstances neither of them are initially enthused about, Aaron and Zack ultimately embark on an unlikely -- and ill-advised -- romance about trust, myth, and what it really means to be comfortable in your own skin.

——
Ink and Ice is part of the same series as After the Gold. The books can be read in any order. Katie and Brendan’s story continues here as a key part of Aaron’s coaching team.

Genres: Romance, Sports, M M Romance, Contemporary, LGBT, Queer, Fiction

332 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 24, 2020

About the author

Erin McRae is a queer writer and blogger based in Washington, D.C. She owns several pieces of paper from distinguished universities, including a Master’s degree in International Affairs from American University, which qualify her to have lengthy and passionate discussions about the microeconomics of Tunisia. She also engages in lengthy and passionate discussions about military history. She likes trenches.

Erin is a cofounder of Avian 30, a literary collective dedicated to narratives with magical and sexual realism. She delights in applying her knowledge of international relations theory to her fiction and screen-based projects, because conflict drives narrative.

She lives in Washington, D.C. with her partner and their two cats.

Reviews

[Joyfully Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Joyfully Jay review.

4 stars

I really enjoyed the story for the most part. On the surface, I would say this has some strong instalove qualities to it. Aaron and Zach are clearly attracted to/interested in one another from the get-go, but they don’t immediately fall into bed or even into a definite relationship. The boundary between Zach and Aaron doing things in the name of journalism and because how else do you get to skate with the Hot Guy was delightfully blurred. The scene were Aaron, the petite and slender skater, is giving Zach, the ostensibly hardened war correspondent, a skating lesson contained this line: Zach felt more absurd than he had in at least a decade as Aaron skated backwards so he could hold Zach’s hands as he marched on the ice. This just created a wonderful mental image in my head (who hasn’t “marched on the ice” the first time they have skates on?). I just liked the whole set-up to big old Zach learning just how tough a skater is, and Aaron learning that Zach may look like Captain Buff’n’stuff, but he didn’t think skating was easy.

Read Camille’s review in its entirety here.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what to really think about this story. The writing, editing, etc. was fine. The subject matter seemed a little strange to me even though the MC's seemed to be just normal people at first.

We had Aaron, an ice skater training very hard for the Olympics, and Zach, a writer hired to write a story in a Sports Illustrated like magazine on Olympic skating. Okay. Then very early in we find out that Zach is into bondage with sexual overtones (knowledge obtained by very public Instagram pictures). Then we have a somewhat insecure Aaron finding out that this bondage helps him mentally with his skating (how, I'm not sure -- I think it was because it grounded him or something). But then this bondage theme disappears from the storyline. I assumed it was continuing between these two MC's but not mentioned again and definitely no details provided.

And then...well, if I start mentioning breaking up a loving relationship because of journalistic integrity, a kind of fairy tale about fresh water seals and having them beckon you to join them, and a few other oddities about living in the middle of Lake Erie on a very small island, well you might think I'm crazy. And after finishing this book I think I am crazy.

Good points: Aaron the ice skater is cute and extremely dedicated to his sport (I was exhausted reading about his training regimen.) In fact the background of all the things that the skaters, coaches and trainers go through to prepare for Olympic skating was fascinating. If for no other reason I am glad I read this story.

[Kim Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

New to me author pairing. This is a mm contemporary story set in the USA around the figure skating world. Main characters are Aaron a figure skater looking for a place in the us Olympic team and Zack a journalist for war zones with PTSD. I liked Zane more that Aaron. Second character Matt, Zack friend was great. I’ll read more from these authors.

[Truitt_T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some sports themed romances have little to do with sports - I’ve read some books in which it felt as though the author picked a professional sport at random in order to have a MC with a great body, a big paycheck, and some measure of fame. This is NOT the case for Ink and Ice: A Twin Cities Ice Book. Figure skating is key to the story and the romance and might as well be a third MC. Aaron and Zack are interesting, both singly and together. There’s a bit of a BDSM kink that’s never fully explored and if you’re looking for lot of hot and heavy sex scenes, this one may not be for you; it’s more titillating than explicit. There’s an odd touch of magical realism, but it works, mostly.

This my first book by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese, but I will definitely be reading more.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I have said in many other reviews of work by Maltese and McRae, they create characters who are interesting, complicated, often messy, and always compelling. Once again, I loved the latest offering in the Twin City series (the second book after After the Gold). They effortlessly weaved in elements of magical realism, very real relationship challenges--made all the more so by the ambitions and ambitiousness of those involved--and a satisfying love story all into one book. Aaron and Zack were delightful to get to know in all their richness and complexity.

The realness of the people who populate the stories Maltese & McRae tell is something I never get tired of. It makes me feel as though they have granted us, the reader, access into a period of each of the characters lives. I feel grateful that Maltese & McRae are able to so effortlessly give us that glimpse.

As always, I'm left wanting more--to know what happens next--mostly about the next meeting with the seals--but also about the next Olympics, the island, and all manner of things.

[Jane]

Oddly enough, the second book I’ve read this month about the unusual little islands in Lake Erie around Put-In Bay.

Very atmospheric, in lots of ways.

[Jane Andelman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a little bit of so many things that never come together. Not enough chemistry, not enough magical realism, not enough BDSM. The only thing there’s enough of is ice.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters in this book are so tender and strong and weird, they make me feel like my heart is being tugged from chest. The settings in the story are also characters in their own right - intricately crafted and pulling the reader in. The book had plot and heat and characterization and intimacy in all the right amounts.

I got lucky to have this book released as I left for a long weekend on Lake Erie (as COVID safe as we could manage), and the book made the trip better.

This is the pick-yourself-up-and-keep-going book you need for 2020.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 3 out of 5]

The skating parts are very well done. I really liked some of the side characters, the ex-nun landlady, other top skaters, the friendly straight guy.

The romance, however, left me a bit flat I think because both men annoyed me. They are not awful people, but one was a little too pompous and the other a little too young and needy. I couldn’t get a good feel for what made them like each other besides the physical. Also, I couldn’t figure out what either lived on financially. And both the bondage play and hint of pnr about seals seemed thrown in haphazardly, supposedly a big deal but not really needed. Lastly the ending, while an HEA, seemed tacked on in the moment and not organic.

Did I mention the skating parts were great?

[Smut Report]

The Smut Report team is participating in Wendy the Super Librarian's #TBRChallenge 2024. Our goal: to dust off our TBRs once a month and talk about the book we read.

Read our full TBR Challenge update at The Smut Report

How do you feel about selkies? I didn’t know I was signing up for magical realism, and it wasn’t completely apparent that I had until pretty well through the book, but I sure did! Not that Aaron actually turns into a seal at any point, to be clear. So that’s a thing that happened.

This book was a little roller coaster for me in that I kept having ups and downs about it (and there were ups and downs in it, too), but it also never engendered particularly strong feelings, either. Aaron learns that the #2 American skater had a career ending injury in the off season, so the field for the Olympic team is now open, as long as he can beat out this one other skater. He’ll have to leave his weird little island in Nowhere, Lake Erie and return to the Twin Cities to start training early. Zach has retired from being a war correspondent due to too much trauma resulting in PTSD, and he’s also dealing with a very not amicable divorce, so when his editor friend throws him a project covering the now exciting race for the open Olympic spot in men’s figure skating, he decides to go for it.

Zach and Aaron immediately have some magnetic chemistry, which caught me up in the story and kept me going, and the narrative flowed in a clear and sensible way, so my fluctuating investment as the story continued is probably somewhere between: it was almost too realistic—by which I mean the movement of the relationship between Zack and Aaron was undefined and slow as a real developing relationship would be, which I don’t usually find compelling enough—and they grew separately more than they did together—which other readers might argue with me about because Aaron’s whole progression as a skater is directly related to practicing bondage with Zack and then translating the freedom and release he feels doing that into his skating program. BUT, they just weren’t together much or growing together really at all on the page.

There’s also that magical realism component that was teased and hinted at and revealed slowly over time, but kind of in the way books with ghosts imply that the presence of the ghost might be real, or could simply be an imagined interpretation of more logically explained events. So, when Aaron finally tells Zack the story, they keep talking about how frightening it is that Aaron has shared it, and that just did not resonate with the tone of the language or the feelings evoked in me at all. There was literally nothing frightening about what Aaron was telling Zack. Weird? Sure. Frightening? How? I think maybe an opportunity was missed to create some evocative setting and description there, because I can’t imagine two grown men being that scared about a big local secret that also kind of amounted to a nothingburger local legend.

OH ALSO, the sex scenes in this book were super weird. Not like weird sex, but like, explicit open door with some bondage and domination, but very briefly described and fade to black. And not many scenes, either. I have never read a BDSM book written like that.

I think with this one I land on: strong start, definitely engaging, didn’t completely deliver on everything it was offering, but overall a good time.

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[Tom Copeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed every moment of this bit of fluff. Like the Whyborne series, it is a gay romance, with the obligatory (though few) bedroom scenes, but like those books, too, its focus is not altogether on the romance. It is about figure skating, and even though I never could so much as stand up on ice skates, the novel forced even me to see this sport as meaningful and exciting. More importantly, the drama of preparing for the Olympics becomes a metaphor for coming out.
Aaron, the protagonist, is already out as a gay man, and being out is not presented as any sort of problem for the characters, but who can doubt that it is—or has been—a problem for many readers? We see our own struggle in coming out reflected in Aaron’s reluctance to let his public know his most private secret, a tiny island in Lake Erie where he lives with his father, mother, and twin sister. This is where his heart is, and every summer he and his sister prepare fish for tourists at Put-In Bay, until training for the Olympics draws him to Minnesota and into the arms of journalist Zach Kelly.
During the course of the novel, he must overcome his shyness in order to throw himself fully into his performance, baring his soul to his audience.
Other aspects of the novel seem likewise to have been chosen with the coming-out experience in mind. Aaron, for instance, being Jewish, is a member of a persecuted group. Even though no antisemitism is depicted or even suggested in the narrative, the Christmas spent on the tiny island—with a Hanukkah bush instead of a Christmas tree—may help some readers empathize with people set apart, as Aaron emphatically is.
And the island home itself? Whisker island, although fictional, is said to lie just north of Middle Bass Island in Lake Erie. Were it a real island, it would have been, as Middle Bass was in fact, the last stop in the Lake Erie segment of the Underground Railroad, that part immortalized in UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. On the northern shore of Middle Bass is at least one house containing a secret shelter for escaped slaves on their way to Canada. Had Whisker Island actually existed, this shelter would probably have been in the home of one of the four families who live there in the novel. Since the authors do not mention this historical detail, it may be fortuitous, but it is indeed fortunate, for anyone who knows it will see in it a second metaphor for the gay experience, the effort to escape persecution.
Nor was the name Whisker Island chosen at random, for seals play a surprising role in the story—their barks if not their whiskers. Of course, their existence in Lake Erie is as dubious as the connection between the island’s name and the actual sea mammal. It’s a teasing hint, no more, but the selkie legend lying behind it reminds us of the dual identity so many of us have been obliged to develop. The final chapter, where a seal approaches Whisker Island, suggests a potential metaphorical resolution of this conflict.
Finally, my enjoyment of the story was not significantly allayed by the proofreading errors that I find in so many other recent novels. I did not find myself constantly longing for Jane Austen.

[S.L. Sullivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 40%
I could not stick this one out. Not even really certain why I picked it up in the first place? Lapse of judgement on top of not really reading the blurb good enough? Libby makes you do questionable things. I like the general idea, but there are so many other books that I want to choose over this one with a similar premise.
Hard DNF because it's from the library with a long waitlist and unless it crops up in a SYKD or KU, I won't buy it. I would have stuck it out if there had been an audiobook though!
I don't have a vehement hate for this book or anything, I like the characters, I just couldn't get into it and was bored. I wasn't a fan of the insta-lust and the strange bondage thing cropping up and it being a major plot driving problem was a bit eyebrow quirking.
On top of this book desperately needing an editor... In all sense. I think I could have gotten past me being bored if it weren't for the editing.
Unfortunate that this is my first read of the year, buuut such is the life.

[Wendell Hennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaron and his twin sister Ari live on a small island near the Canadian border with a folklore of seals who migrated from the ocean inhabiting the area for generations. Four families live on the island which is a tourist destination in summer and his family operate a restaurant in season. Aaron is a figure skater who goes to St Paul Minneapolis for training in the winter. Zack is a journalist with PTSD from war zones who is assigned to write an article on two skaters competing for one vacant spot on the US Olympic team. This story is filled with the drama and intensity of a gay figure skating artist and the dilemmas of seasoned journalist whose life is falling apart. Beautiful characters with plenty of humor and terrific insight into the world of professional figure skating. The medal competitions could not be any more realistic if you were sitting ring side at the arena. A beautiful story well written and full of love and angst. Thank you Erin McRae.

[LBD · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got the impression this book couldn'd decide what it wanted to be. I kind of enjoyed it, but at the same time, I was not sure exactly what I was reading half of the time. There were too many different elements that, in my opinion, never really glued together.

There was the bondage, which Zack more or less sprung on Aaron without a question or a conversation.

Then there was their relationship as a whole, which I never could completely see or understand. I didn't really feel any chemistry between them, to be completely honest.

And then there was the kind of supernatural twist? That really weirded me out. It could have been something really cool if it had been addressed from the beginning and developed, but it kind of got slapped in the middle of the book and never went anywhere further. Weird.

[Ashley S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard book to get into. Almost DNF it. I didn't feel there was enough chemistry between the MCs, and the writing style seemed to tell us what happened instead of showing. It time jumped, summarizing what had happened during the gaps, which didn't immerse me in the story as much as I'd like. Even MC1's big accomplishment, getting the spot on the Olympic team, was summarized in one paragraph.

The figure skating aspect was well done, it was a big part of the story; as was MC1's home island and the selkie lore.

The sex scenes were mild, even though they included light bondage, and mostly fade to black, which I felt added to the feeling that there was a lack of connection/chemistry between the characters. I also generally read far spicier romance, so it was a bit of a letdown.

Glad I borrowed this book from the library!

[Fedora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars

Aaron Sheftall is an Olympic hopeful from a small northern island. Zack Kelly is a writer tasked with writing an article about the possible candidates for the US men’s figure skaters.

Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese bring readers behind the scenes at elite competitive skating training and competitions. Aaron and Zack feel an immediate chemistry and fall quickly into a relationship but circumstances aren’t really on their side and they take an indefinite hiatus to allow Aaron to focus on his skating dreams.

Ms McRae and Ms Maltese create compelling characters but there is a lot in the mix and the more fantastical elements do require some suspension of disbelief.

[Coral · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maaaybe a 3.5 but I can’t round up. This book had some strong parts, but I feel like it needed one last round of edits for copy and content to tighten it up a little more.
The core issue: I don’t think the leads really spent enough time together. There wasn’t the development in relationship to convince me they’d last long term. The sex scenes were also pretty tame despite BDSM elements.
But I love gay romance and winter sports, so it was still enjoyable.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

why??

Why don’t you put BDSM or kink on the cover ? I got half way through and was nearly sick. I was really enjoying it and got invested in the characters then you ruined it for me. I know some people love that and am happy for them to have this but warn a girl so she doesn’t start something only to be ruined :(. Can’t complain about the writing or characters. Loved those just ughhhhh. Please warn one ??

[Sasha Ambroz · Rating 3 out of 5]

So so. I didn't connect to the characters, neither special boy Aaron the figure skater, nor the war journalist Zack. The conflict between them was opaque for me. The most interesting part was the competition chapters and I have one question about it.
Why authors decided not to use the specific songs for Aaron's programs? What's behind the idea? I thought it was a suspense technique at first.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun-and-angsty-but-the-fun-kind-of-angst, slightly kinky m/m romance about an ice skater trying for the Olympics and the journalist who seriously messes up his journalistic objectivity. (Disclosure - I know one of the authors.)

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like figure skating books and fast romance with issues, then this is perfect for you.

It is a fun, entertaining book about being strange and possibly a bit of magical beings thrown in.

Worth the read.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

some really cool aspects of this book: the skater grew on a small island in Lake Erie & I am familiar with the area! I enjoy figure skating books, learned a lot about the sport. Interesting about the seal folklore of the islands, which I have to research more. good romance.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I would say, however, that skating kind of overrides everything else - romance, plot, other worldbuilding. Also, there are a number of elements that seemed to be thrown in but didn't get fully developed.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

The physical chemistry between Aaron and Zack was on point, but the romantic attraction less so. Lots of funny bits sprinkled throughout. I liked that Aaron made the Olympic team but didn't medal. It was a good mix of letting the protagonist win but still tempered with realistic expectations. The BDSM thing felt like a dropped plot thread. Certain scenes made me expect Aaron's photos would get leaked, but that did not happen.

[Erin]

May have built this one up in my head too much. Started really strong and then... IDK I don't like it when characters are too nice and never really get to be their fullest badness, and this kinda developed into that vibe.

[Kandice]

Dnf @ 38% I should have read reviews. But really, if you're going to have an MC into bondage that ought to be in the blurb.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book where all the threads, all the details, support the plot and character arcs. Truly enjoyed reading it.

[Catherine]

I’m not really feeling this - can’t quite put my finger on it but maybe the writing? But I have so many other books to read so I’m letting this one go.

[Hijinx Abound · Rating 3 out of 5]

A male ice skater and a former war correspondent. I enjoyed this configuration.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book changes genres every five chapters or so. Kinda funny