Randall Hicks

After being badly burned in an accident when she was young, Katie Wilder wears a mask to hide her injured face from the world. The daughter of a once famous skating coach, she spends many hours skating – becoming one of the best skaters in the world even if nobody knows it. But when her father is able to return to coaching and starts coaching pair skaters who may qualify for the Olympics, Katie’s life begins to change. Will she find the courage to chase her own figure skating dreams or will she keep hiding behind her mask?

Set in the real life world of competitive figure skating, “The Girl Without a Face” is an interesting, poignant novel that features real skating events (for example the Grand Prix Series, Nationals, and the Olympics) and real life places (the home rink Katie skates at really exists but is now sadly closed) mixed in with the fictional story of Katie. And Katie’s story is very well done – scarred both on the outside and inside, she grows to realize that she can not only have friends and realize her dreams but help people despite her disfigured face. She has a wicked sense of humor that had me chuckling more than once while reading the book. I loved reading as she grows as a character throughout the course of the book, discovering that she may have been wrong about a few things but willing to learn from her mistakes. And oh can she skate! As for the skating elements, I found they were nicely done with a good mixture of real and fictional characters including real-life skaters and a few real-life coaches. I am not a skater but a skating fan who watches as much skating as I can every year (not just in Olympic years) and I found the skating elements to be just right (as a non-skater I can’t speak to the minute scoring aspects). To be sure, there were a few times, especially towards the end of the book, when I was muttering “this would never happen in real life” but the book is fiction after all (and the authors freely admit they took some licenses with some skating aspects) and it does make for some thrilling moments towards the end of the book. Finally, I loved the final sentences of the book – what a perfect way to end the book!

“The Girl Without a Face” is a nicely done novel.… (meer)

First Toby Dillon mystery, in which the adoption attorney sets out to find a young birth mother who apparently deceived him and the adoptive parents of a little girl by not telling them that she was carrying twins. Now the mother and other baby have both scarpered, and the adoptive parents, a pair of Hollywood celebs, are heartbroken that their baby will grow up without her twin sister and they all get involved in trying to find them despite the fact that they have no legal claim to the other child. Very humorously written early on especially but the tone changes to more somber about mid-book; poignant and heartbreaking at times, too. Of course with Hollywood involved, you know there has to be secrets, scandal and blackmail involved somewhere and it all complicates things terribly for Toby, who is not only the celeb couple’s adoption attorney but their best friend too.… (meer)