What if New York had the Olympics?

The iconic skyline. Photograph by Daniel Schwen.

With the Sochi Games now open, The New York Times has been wondering just that, with drawings that imagine the Big Apple as an Olympic winter wonderland. (This year we certainly have the snow for it.) But readers need wonder no more. In my new novel “Water Music,” it does.

This first of the series “The Games Men Play,” two pairs of athlete-lovers who are at the heart of my story – swimmers Daniel and Dylan and tennis players Alex and Alí – meet at a Summer Olympics in Manhattan, where shifting professional fortunes signal shifting personal alliances.

Having awarded New York the Summer Games, I’ve gone on to give Omaha its own football team. The Omaha Steers are center stage in my second book in TGMP series, “In This Place You Hold Me,” about a quarterback’s search for identity. (Omaha, I know you were disappointed that Peyton Manning – who always uses Omaha as one of his audibles – and his Broncos lost the Super Bowl. I hope my giving you your own team takes the sting out of that – but I doubt it. Art can’t make up for real life.)

In this novel, quarterback Quinton Day Novak’s team, The New York Templars, has to beat The Steers at The Steerage in Omaha in order to keep their Super Bowl dream alive.

Who will win?  Ah, you’ll have to read the book to find out.