February Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: Frigid Revenge

Time Setting: 2018

Genre: Thriller

Minimum Word Goal: 120,000

Timespan: November–December

Locations: Banff, Canmore, & Calgary, Alberta; Cranbrook, British Columbia; Copper Mountain, Colorado

Main Characters: Oakley Lyzaniuk, Alidia Tennfjord

Background Information:

Born the middle child and youngest son of three children, Oakley actually arrived six weeks before his due date, but few would guess that he was born so early.

He's always been an avid lover of the outdoors, no matter what the weather, and it seems that his additional love of physical activity — and maybe his father's height genes — gave him strength and robustness beyond what the doctors had initially prognosticated.

As a child, his love of the outdoors was fuelled by two things: quiet isolation from his bothersome older brother, and one-on-one time with his incredibly athletic father, whose trophy case and athletic prowess prompted Oakley to dream of being just like his father.

When he was eight, things changed. Everyone except his father was in the family car when it was T-boned, with his brother bearing the brunt of the injury. Soon it was realised that Oakley's father was seeing the physiotherapist, and his parents' marriage collapsed.

Devastated by his father's lack of care for the family, he willingly stayed with his mother, especially when she moved into her parents' house, as her parents operated a campground much closer to the mountains than he'd lived until then, which gave him the biggest playground he could've ever asked for.

However, his mother also took to eating almost constantly, and within a year of the divorce she was twice the weight she'd been before, which prompted her and her children to be kicked out of her parents' house.

When he was eleven his sister suffered a severe asthma attack and died, which only prompted his mother to eat more and gain even more weight.

Three years later his brother graduated — a year early due to taking two grades in one year in elementary school — and so their mother decided to take them on a trip over Christmas to celebrate, the destination and activities to be of his brother's choosing.

His brother chose to go to Vancouver due to his personal interest in technology. This excited Oakley due to Vancouver's proximity to Whistler. Being an avid athlete, Oakley had taken up snowboarding, and he hoped to get to Whistler and do some riding.

Researching things beforehand, Oakley discovered that there was a competition going on at a Whistler resort around Christmas, and managed to enter himself into it without his mother's knowing. He then brought his snowboarding equipment along and got himself to Whistler via transit, where he competed in the competition and won the prize of some $1,000.

After the competition he met a man who wanted to know who he was, and he ended up confessing that he wanted to compete professionally, but didn't have a coach. They exchanged names and numbers before the police picked him up and brought him back to his mother, who was upset at his disappearance, until she found out he'd won money.

Obstinately, Oakley refused to give her the money, spending it on new snowboarding equipment and other things he'd always wanted so that she couldn't steal it from him.

The man he'd talked to soon contacted his mother and told her that he'd like to be Oakley's coach, and eventually, when she got her sister in Calgary to agree to hosting Oakley for the school year, his mother agreed to the arrangement.

Oakley suffered through the three years of high school staying with his aunt and going home to his mother for the summers before finally moving into his coach's basement upon graduation. 

All the while he's been snowboarding avidly in competitions across the world, and doing quite well at it, with the aim of getting to the Olympics.

Born the youngest child and only daughter out of four children, Alidia's family has always been outdoorsy, as her father skied professionally, and he wanted all of his children to know how to ski as well.

Having only brothers for playmates resulted in Alidia quickly becoming rougher and tougher than most of her female peers, and preferring to play whatever the boys were playing during free time — and doing quite well at it.

As her brothers got older, they all got their own coaches, helping them hone their skills in their chosen field of competition in either skiing or snowboarding, and she hoped to do the same herself.

She hoped to do this, in part, to make herself stand out, as she was frustrated by the fact that, for some reason, few people knew her name, they always identified her by her father or her brothers, not even the fact that she had an unusual given name in Alidia seemed to help.

Seeing as the boys in her family got noticed, she started doing what she could to look more like a boy — except that her mother wouldn't let her have her hair shorter than shoulder length, so she grew it out long enough to keep it in a braid so it was out of her way — and started using the masculine nickname of Charlie, derived from her middle name Charlotte.

So far, nothing has helped, not even the fact that she chose snowboarding — something none of the girls in her extremely winter-sporty family have chosen to do — as her discipline of choice.

Making headway in snowboarding did take some time, though, as she rejected female coaches, and instead sought a male coach with male students for her to keep up with; which was a task more because most of the male coaches with only male students weren't sure they wanted to take her on.

She has, however, finally found a coach and has put an exceptional effort into keeping up with his male students, and has proven herself to be an adept snowboarder, but yet still people don't seem to remember her for anything she's done, which is what she wants people to remember her for, not because of who she's related to.

Considering that she's finally old enough to compete internationally at the top levels, Charlie hopes that she'll be able to do well there so as to prompt people to see how good she is, and cause her to gain a notoriety that is all her own.

Pronunciation:

Lyzaniuk: liezahneeuk