Gold

Starred review from March 26, 2012
Cleave (Little Bee) goes for the gold and brings it home in his thrillingly written and emotionally rewarding novel about the world of professional cycling. Zoe Castle and Kate Meadows met at age 19 trying out for the British Cycling Team and have been friends and rivals for 13 years now. Kate might have more natural ability, but Zoe is the more driven of the two. Kate is married to a fellow racer, Jack Argall, and they have an eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who suffers from leukemia. Zoe is pursued by her own demons and has a tabloid reputation for sleeping around, which doesn’t sit well with her agent. Things begin to heat up when the International Olympic Committee changes its rules so that only one cyclist, either Zoe or Kate, will be eligible to compete in the 2012 London Games. Cleave expertly cycles through the characters’ tangled past and present, charting their ever-shifting dynamic as ultra-competitive Zoe and Kate are forced to decide whether winning means more to them than friendship, building to a winner-take-all race at the Manchester Velodrome. Cleave likewise pulls out all the stops getting inside the hearts and minds of his engagingly complex characters. The race scenes have true visceral intensity, leaving the reader feeling as breathless as a cyclist. From start to finish, this is a truly Olympic-level literary achievement. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM.

Starred review from March 15, 2012
After the enormous popular success of his second novel (Little Bee, 2009, etc.), British author Cleave turns to the world of Olympic speed cyclists to explore the shifting sands of ambition, loyalty and love. Tom, who just barely missed his own medal in 1968, is coaching Kate and Zoe to represent Britain at the 2012 Olympics, which the 32-year-old women know will be their last. They are best friends but fierce rivals. Zoe, who already has won four Olympic golds, lives only to race and will do anything, including sacrifice friends, ethics and her own emotional needs, to come in first. Though technically as fast, Kate is a perpetual runner -up, and compared to Zoe, she seems almost soft; her willingness to put family needs first has caused her to pass up two previous Olympic competitions. And then there is Jack, who has his own Olympic golds. He met Zoe and Kate when the three were stars in a program Tom ran to train Britain's most talented adolescent cycling prospects. Jack was the sexy boy down from Scotland obviously bound for glory. Although he and Zoe shared a brief, highly charged and emotionally fraught affair, Kate was the one he fell in love with and married. Their little girl Sophie is the novel's real heart. Cleave has a gift for portraying difficult children who pull every heartstring. Battling leukemia and obsessed with Star Wars, Sophie furtively watches her parents' reactions to her illness. Kate both embraces and resents that she is the one who must make the sacrifices for Sophie, while Jack's commitment to his wife and daughter is deeper, if more complex, than Kate recognizes. Meanwhile, emotionally stunted Zoe is facing a personal crisis of her own, both public and private. Then higher-ups change the rules, and father figure Tom must choose whether Kate or Zoe is going to the Olympics. In weaker hands this would seem a bit contrived, but Cleave knows how to captivate with rich characters and nimble plotting.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2012

Gold--as in Olympic gold--is what Zoe and Kate both want. Friends and rivals, they've trained for world-class athletic events and competed against each other to win. Now they're facing their last Olympics, the 2012 games in London. The author of the No. 1 New York Times best seller Little Bee has surely hit upon a newsworthy idea; bet this will be popular with book clubs.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2012
Readers galvanized by best-selling Cleave's previous politically scorching novels (Little Bee, 2009) will be surprised by his foray into the world of Olympic bicycle racing until they discern just how psychologically gripping a tale this is of the soul-warping effects of fierce competition. Coach Tom is hobbled with bad knees and haunted by painful regrets. Wry and wise, he focuses his energy and expertise on two champions he adores, who are inextricably yoked in a complicated and potentially disastrous rivalry: model-gorgeous, self-destructive Zoe and good, honest, giving Kate. Sexy celebrity and sponsorship-magnet Zoe racks up medals with a lethal combination of head games and physical perfection while harboring secret grief and guilt. Wife and mother Kate's kindness is the source of both her weakness and her power. Cocky, gold-winning cyclist Jack has been involved with both women, but it is Kate he always loved and eventually married, and now their training regimes are thrown into chaos as they worry over and care for their young, valiant, and smart Star Warsobsessed daughter, Sophie, who is battling leukemia. Spanning the Athens, Beijing, and looming London 2012 Olympics, Cleave's brilliantly plotted, nail-biting, and emotional tale dramatizes the triumphs and anguish of ambition and sacrifice, fame and heartbreak to celebrate the true gold of love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)