Winter Games

Winter Games by Kyell Gold is the story of Sierra, a young snow leopard who, while staying at a ski resort, end up glimpsing what looks like Carmel, a former friend from his past and someone he has not been able to move from. However, the story does not just end there, as this is a dual timeline book. So, as we get to see Sierra's efforts to reunite with Carmel in the present, we also get constant flashbacks chapter pertaining to 15 years ago during their high school years. How they met, how they became closer to each other, and eventually, how things ended. To be honest, just from the premise, this book had a lot of potential, but while I usually like dual timeline stories, I feel that it is exactly that very same thing which lets the book down.

It's inevitable in stories like this to compare both timelines and that one of them will end up as stronger. In this case, while the present timeline has a way stronger beginning, it does not take long for the past one to supersede it as the superior one, not in small part because we have the lingering question of what caused these two to split up as opposed to the present one where it's main objective is achieved relatively on. This would not necessarily be a bad thing, but the timelines alternate every other chapter without exception, which hurts the book as a whole. There are several points in both timelines where a chapter feels like padding just to continue with that gimmick, when it would have been better to cut one of the two short to give more time for one of them to breathe by cutting or joining some chapters.

Regarding the characters, I'd say the book excels with the supporting cast in both the present and past timelines. As for our main couple, present day's Sierra starts as a nuanced character which soon devolves as part of his single-mindedness obsession with Carmel (and not in an interesting way), while the latter is mostly absent. Past Sierra, though, does have a character arc that extends almost exclusively in that timeline, which comes in stark contrast to Carmel, where you can see a clear distinction between his past and present selves, both fairly static in each timeline, but a change where you can understand where Carmel's attitude and actions in the past would influece the one's of the present.

Overall, I wished I liked this book, as it's full of elements that I like, but it unfortunately missed the mark. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate this book, it's fine. Just fine. Though I wonder how it would have fared if more care and focus was given to one of the timelines instead of trying to force them to be as “equally” present.