Review: "Blade" by Wendy Walker

Blade by Wendy Walker
Published January 2026 via Thomas & Mercer
★★★

Then, Ana was a promising young skater living away from home for the first time. Now, she’s moved on to a law career and put skating behind her—put it in a box, taped the box up, put the box on a high shelf in the closet, closed the door, and walked away. But the past has a way of coming back to find you, and when Ana is brought in to defend a young skater accused of murder, she has to face the strange world she once inhabited.

Skating books are up there with ballet books and gymnastics books for me—I have virtually no experience in the actual sports, but I'll read about them til the cows come home. And this particular book contains a tantalizing author's note:

When I was thirteen, I was accepted into an elite figure skating program in Colorado. I moved far from my home to live in a dormitory and train with promising skaters and champions from around the world. While this story is a work of fiction, the personal impact of my own exerience remains with me to this day.

I know I'm not alone. (loc. 4110)

I'll assume, of course, that a murder was not part of Walker's experience as a skater—and, also of course, I won't assume anything else about her own experience. But Blade hints at the damage that can be wrought upon talented young girls, far away from home. Because the obvious objective of the Palace, where first Ana and now her client trained, is clear: Create champions. But the lengths to which the Palace will go to achieve those goals...well, let's just say that that's not part of the marketing materials. And moreover, the stated objective is not the only one. Every adult responsible for the care of these girls has his or her own priorities, and rarely does the health and well-being of the girls in question top anyone's priority list.

While some of the reveals I could see coming, others provide dramatic twists in the story. There is an extent to which Ana is hiding things from the reader for much of the book, which is not a writing choice that particularly appeals to me (I like to be on the same page as the POV character!), but it does keep that element of surprise in. I'd have liked to see a bit more skating, though; Walker is in a unique position to write with authority about the daily ins and outs of a training program like the Palace, and I would have liked more about that: other than landing or falling on given skills, and getting praise or rejection in response, what would a typical practice look like, a typical day, a typical week?

A good one for readers who want their ice-princess dreams shattered and grit rubbed in the resulting wound.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.