Olympic Extravaganza!

It's here! As an Olympic junkie, I look forward to the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics like a kid looks forward to Christmas. And the Winter Olympics are even more special to me because we get to see my favorite sport, figure skating, on sports' biggest stage. This year the competition begins the day before the Opening Ceremony, so the action begins in a few hours!

To celebrate the 2014 Winter Games, I'm going to have a two-week long party here on my blog. There will be posts introducing you to all the American figure skaters, spotlights on some fabulous skating books, and giveaways every day that a skating medal is awarded!

Also, for the duration of the Games, Fighting for the Edge will be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon! Life on the Edge and Edge of the Past are already discounted, so you can get all three books of the EDGE series for only $3!

To kick off the celebration, I want you to meet a new author, KJV (Katie Van Ark). She's also an adult skater who's competed at Adult Nationals.

She just released her debut novel, a YA skating romance, and you can read it for free on Swoon Reads. Here's a little bit more about Pairing Up:

Madelyn Spier spends hours each day holding the hand of the most popular boy at school…on the ice. She wants more than their figure skating partnership, and a romantic new program could be her big break. Or a big break-up, since the only thing that rivals Gabriel Nielsen’s number of medals is his number of ex-girlfriends.

Gabe knows Maddy has a crush on him but he hasn’t spent years braving a freezing ice rink at five in the morning only to have his dreams shattered by yet another break-up. He’s not getting involved with Maddy, until their coach convinces him to pretend to be in love with her. As the lines between pretend and reality blur, Gabe must decide what he really wants to win.

Read the entire novel free on Swoon Reads! And learn more about Katie on her website and Twitter.

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And now for the giveaways! There will be one Rafflecopter for the celebration, and I'll include it at the bottom of every blog post so you can enter the contest daily. Prizes will be revealed the day of the medal events in figure skating, and winners will be announced shortly after each event. Here's the schedule of when prizes will be given away:

February 9 - Team Final

February 12 - Pairs Final

February 14 - Men's Final

February 17 - Ice Dance Final

February 20 - Ladies Final

Start entering now! The first prize will be given away Sunday, the day of the first ever figure skating team final!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday Moves

Since we're on the eve of the 2014 Winter Olympics (YAYYYY!!!!), I thought I'd feature a move from one of my favorite Olympic exhibition programs. Katia Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov came out of the professional ranks to compete at the Olympics in 1994, and they were magnificent in winning their second gold medal. I had the entire 1994 Olympic exhibition on videocassette, and I watched it obsessively for months. This program was one of the standouts. Every move in it is exquisite, but I particularly love the dance lift where Katia goes onto Sergei's back and their arms and legs are stretched in perfect unison, showing off their gorgeous lines. There will never be another pair like them!

And speaking of the Olympics, get ready because I'm going to be giving away lots of EDGE series and skating-themed prizes during the Games! I'll also have special features on all the American skaters so you can get to know them a little. The blog will be hopping starting Friday, so you'll definitely want to stop by!

Join My Street Team!

If you're a fan of my books and would like to help me promote them, I've created a street team, The Olympians! It will be a group on Facebook where we can have fun discussing the books, I can share exclusive teasers and tidbits, and you can win prizes! Just click on the link below and hit "Join Group." Hope to see you there!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/jennifersolympians/

Monday Moves

I'm going way back for this week's Monday Moves, all the way to 1994. After watching Joshua Farris' beautiful Schindler's List program this season, a friend reminded me of Paul Wylie's stunning program twenty years ago. I hadn't watched it in years, and I absolutely love the passion he put into it. One of the moves that stood out to me was his Ina Bauer into a camel spin. Gorgeous!

Monday Moves

Monday Moves is back! It's been a hectic couple of weeks with nationals and then work craziness last week once I returned from Boston. Work is still out of control, so I haven't had time to write a recap of my thoughts on nationals, but I didn't want Monday to go by without posting. Today I'm featuring one of my favorite ice dance lifts from nationals - Madison Chock and Evan Bates' opening lift from their Les Miserables free dance. It's a stunning combination lift! The straight-line part where Madison goes up into the air right on the crescendo of the music gives me goosebumps every time.

2014 Nationals - Sunday Events

Well Sunday was even more emotional than Saturday! I tried to capture the moments as best as I could! What a week this has been. I hope I can gather my thoughts at some point!

Here are my photos from the men's warmup, men's free skate, medal ceremony, and the exhibition.

2014 Nationals - Saturday Events

Wow, I'm still trying to process everything that happened today! Pairs and dance were made of awesomeness for the most part while the ladies gave us some major highs and lows. I think the moment of the day belonged to Felicia Zhang and Nate Bartholomay. Their performance and the emotions in the aftermath were what an Olympic year nationals is all about!

Here are the photos from the pairs free skate, free dance, and ladies free skate plus lots of medal ceremony pics!