From Lukov with Love - Mariana Zapata

I have a new favorite Mariana Zapata book, and this is it.  Why?  Because I have a total weakness for figuring skating romances.  The Cutting Edge movies are my absolute favorites in this.  This book is basically one of those, but in book form.  And considering that figure skating events just wrapped at the 2018 Winter Olympics, this book was a particularly timely read--something that Zapata probably took into consideration when she put it out.

Jasmine is a twenty-six-year-old figure skater who's been forced into an off season because she doesn't have a pairs skating partner, and her singles career crashed and burned when she was younger--though we're never really given the exact sequence of events that led her to switching into pairs.  It might be the end of her career entirely, until Ivan Lukov and his coach approach Jasmine and ask her to partner with him for one year while his regular partner takes a season off.  Jasmine and Ivan have "known" each other for years--his sister is Jasmine's best friend.  But they don't exactly get along.  In fact, they spend every opportunity they get sniping at each other, and it doesn't help their relationship that while Jasmine has struggled professionally, Ivan has flourished, winning multiple national and world championships and even two Olympic gold medals--though one of those, Jasmine points out, is a team medal.  But despite their rocky relations, Jasmine agrees to partner up because she's keenly aware this is her best chance to finally win.  And so they set out, with a grudging agreement to be nice to each other, at least at practice and in public.

Ivan and Jasmine's relationship might have a bad past and a rocky start, but it starts warming up, at least to "liking," rather quicker than in some of Zapata's other books, which I enjoyed.  Ivan dropped being a total jerk pretty quickly, though Jasmine hung onto it for a while longer.  Seeing her trust in him slowly grow was good, and he definitely didn't do anything to betray that.  Honestly, Ivan clearly cares for Jasmine pretty much from the beginning, and not just because she's his partner.  This is one of those things that is obvious to us as readers, but isn't so obvious to Jasmine because of everything going on around her.  But he let her into his room, guys!  He's also a departure from heroines of the past in Zapata's work.  Ivan is much more outgoing and bright and charming than her quiet, brooding, sulky types in other books, and this was a welcome change.  I think Jasmine needed someone bright and outgoing and charming.  Had both she and Ivan remained all surly, it doesn't seem like it would have worked out.

One thing that Zapata excels is the slow build, the anticipation--but she normally falls flat on the actual sex, which is a disappointment.  Luckily for us, she seems to be getting better on that front, too!  I've gotta say that the final "hooking up" here was greatly superior to scenes in Kulti, for example, or even The Wall of Winnipeg and Me.  Additionally, she continues to tie the books together in little ways.  Clearly Jasmine's brother-in-law was the title character of Dear Aaron (which I have not read) and the "familiar football player" mentioned at one point had to be Aiden.  That said, this definitely isn't a "sequel" book and you can comfortably read it without any of her other books being on your "read" shelf.

Overall, I absolutely loved this.  I was very happy that my boyfriend had class for almost six hours straight so I could read it completely uninterrupted.  It was wonderful.  So go read it and watch Youtube videos of triple Lutzes and Salchows and pairs skating and dream up ships for everyone you see and then just watch The Cutting Edge, all of them, to top it off.  That's what I'll be doing.

5 stars out of 5.