Gold

What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling--a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy--she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn't want to stand in the way of her mum's Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate--and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, "Gold "is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.

Review :
"Cleave is an acutely intelligent wordsmith. Some of the sentences cut so deep you want to scream out in pain and recognition . . . This is an inspirational and moving novel in so many ways, and everyone should read it." "Chris Cleave is a writer who goes for your throat and doesn't let go. . . . The rivalry that powers the book is the competition between the closely matched Kate and Zoe, which takes place on and off the course. That they also develop a friendship, uneasy and fraught but still real, is a testament to Kate's generosity, as well as Cleave's talent as a writer. He writes women, particularly wounded women, with great empathy and skill."--"The Oregonian" "Cleave has the extremely rare power of making you smile with lively language and clever observations while he is thoroughly, irreparably breaking your heart."--"Newsday "(NY) "In "Gold", as with his previous work, Cleave writes with tremendous heart, displaying a keen eye for life's absurdities, sorrows, and triumphs. The story is riveting, the characters unforgettable. "Gold" has everything you could ask for in a story: adrenaline-soaked racing, wretchedly human decisions, laugh-out-loud moments and quietly heartbreaking ones."--"Bookpage" "Moving and compelling . . . . The millions of readers of "Little Bee" can attest that despite the delicacy of his prose, Cleave doesn't deal in half measures or subtle strokes--he goes straight for the heartstrings. Every page of "Gold" is drenched with an urgency of feeling that generates the same emotional pleasure as a great moment in sports, where we simultaneously witness triumph and failure in the starkest, most dramatic terms. . . . "Gold" will likely resonate most with readers for the way it unveils the ordinariness surrounding the extraordinary." --"Nashville Scene" "A heartstring-tugger with an adrenaline-fueled plot from the bestselling author of "Little Bee."" "Cleave again displays a remarkable aptitude for rendering female characters with startling realism, one of the strengths of his previous novels (particularly 2009's "Little Bee"). He conjures Sophie's traumatized yet resilient young mind as deftly as he does the complex interior narratives of high-strung Zoe and the more philosophical Kate. . . . In these breathless portrayals of sport and spirit, "Gold" illuminates the stories of courage, loss, and commitment that are behind each of the seemingly invincible Olympians we root for every four years."--"Elle" ""Gold" wins a medal for impressive timing: Chris Cleave's adrenalized novel--which breathlessly tracks the complicated friendship and furious competition between two speed cyclists, Kate and Zoe, as they train for a fictional London 2012 Olympics--arrives just a month before the opening of the actual London 2012 Olympics. . . . As Cleave demonstrated in his best-seller "Little Bee", he is a full-hearted writer."--"Entertainment Weekly" "Chris Cleave's latest novel lives and breathes, sweats and suffers at the harrowing place where ambition collides with sacrifice. That it arrives on the eve of the 2012 Olympic Games in London is perfect timing on the part of Cleave and publisher Simon & Schuster, but "Gold" would be first class anytime, anywhere. It's an adrenaline-fueled drama about winning and losing, in the velodrome and daily existence, an explosive exploration of the cost of success and the way sports competition can spill unhappily into life. It will force you to reconsider the definition of "victory," and it will leave you breathless . . . Cleave proves again that if writing were an Olympic sport, he'd be vying for a medal."--"Miami Herald" "Cleave kick-starts his stories from the first breath and never takes his feet off the pedals." --"Washington Post" "Cleave's great gift is his ability to write moving fiction that also provides original, contemporary insights. . . . "Gold" is a real winner of a novel."--"USA Today" "Emotionally arresting (and exquisitely timed) . . . Cleave shines when he focuses on the cyclists' sacrifices, including training sessions in which they push themselves to the brink of blacking out . . . Cleave's fine novel will give you an appreciation for all that London's Olympians have gone through as you watch them contort their bodies, leap for the heavens or pedal round and round and round."--"Sports Illustrated" "If Olympic medals were awarded for dramatic stories about what drives athletes to compete and succeed, Cleave would easily ascend the podium. "Gold "does for sport racing what Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" did for high-risk adventure: It demystifies its allure, giving readers an inside track on a certain type of compulsive mindset. But "Gold" is also about time, ambition and love, three life forces continuously jockeying for supremacy. Novels, like racing, depend on careful pacing, and Cleave calibrates his performance with the skill of a real pro, carefully ratcheting up the intensity as he finesses curves and heads into his final laps. . . . Cleave spins a doozy of a plot, with enough drama and sentiment to sustain a soap opera. His characters are humanized by their struggle with their personal demons . . . . With "Gold", Cleave unleashes megawatts of power in yet another triumphant dash toward literary success."--NPR "Like the best-selling "Little Bee", Cleave's new book, "Gold", is highly emotionally charged . . . Cleave immersed himself in the world of track cycling and makes the most of his research in scenes of stunning athletic endurance, but it's the trials of the human spirit that are his real material in a novel meant to move you. And it does."--"New York Daily News" "[Cleave] is such an energetic writer . . . "Gold" flows with the vitality of the sport it covers. . . . An entertaining ride."--"Guardian"(UK) "After the enormous popular success of his second novel, "Little Bee", 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. . . . [Kate's] little girl Sophie is the novel's real heart. Cleave has a gift for portraying difficult children who pull every heartstring. . . . [He] knows how to captivate with rich characters and nimble plotting."--"Kirkus Reviews" (starred review) "Cleave's latest novel demonstrates the determination of three extraordinary athletes in a story about true sacrifice. . . . [Their lives are] so intertwined, so complex, that the outcome is sure to be a surprise. Close on the heels of his international best seller "Little Bee", British author Cleave has written another story so riveting that it is impossible to put down."--"Library Journal" (starred review) "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 . . . Spanning the Athens, Beijing, and looming London 2012 Olympics, Cleave's brilliantly plotted, nail-biting, and emotional tale dramatizes the anguish and triumphs of ambition and sacrifice, fame and heartbreak to celebrate the true gold of love."--"Booklist "(starred review) "Strikingly well written . . . ["Gold"] has that rare gift of getting past the urban sneer to move and gratify, to stir us because it does, indeed, matter. It is bold and brave and, when you're on your way to the games this summer, and the person opposite you on the train is sobbing hot tears onto their Kindle, you'll have a pretty good idea what they're reading."--"Observer" (UK) "What counts about this thrilling novel are the characters: the flaws and fears that fuel their need to compete, the drives and dreads that bring them together and threaten to bring them to blows. . . . Chris Cleave deserves a medal." * * * * * --"Daily Express "(UK) "Cleave goes for the gold and brings it home in his thrillingly written and emotionally rewarding novel about the world of professional cycling. . . . 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 . . . 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 breathless . . . From start to finish, this is a truly Olympic-level literary achievement."--"Publishers Weekly" (boxed starred review) The #1 IndieNext Pick for July* An Instant "New York Times" bestseller * One of "Marie Claire's" "Favorite Reads" * A "DailyBeast/Newsweek" Book Club Pick * A "Martha Stewart Living" Book Club Pick * A "USA Today" Books Pick