Fresh Off the Slopes: Sneak Peek at Off Course by Julie Cook

Today’s sneak peek is a debut sports romance from author Julie Cook! Arriving on August 4, 2026 from Keylight Books, this spicy skiing romance will melt your ice cubes this summer.

Kit Schuster is one of the most decorated women on the ski slopes. But when a young rival challenges her records, Kit strives to prove herself even further by entering the newest Olympic event: ski mountaineering. To prepare for the next Winter Olympics, Kit hires Asher McClendon, a daring (and sexy) ski mountaineer, to train her at his Lake Tahoe home. Soon, Kit’s strict routine (and life) are derailed by Asher’s training and their growing attraction to each other.

Off Course is a cool fit for fans of Tessa Bailey, Lana Ferguson, and Jess K. Hardy!

Some of the tropes and themes you can expect to find include:

• forced proximity

• black cat (her) x golden retriever (him)

• found family

• 🌶️x 4 spice (explicit)

Below is the exclusive sneak peek of the first two chapters of Off Course.

Enjoy!

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“WHAT EVEN IS PIZZAZZ?” I mutter at my phone, several thousand feet above Utah.

Jonas reads over my shoulder, and grunts disapprovingly. “Ignore it.”

“No, seriously. What does that mean? Carving down an entire racecourse on only one ski? Throwing backies while fireworks shoot out from your boots? A Glen Plake mohawk?” He tries to yank my phone from my fingertips, but I quickly jerk it away, holding it high against the plane’s blasting A/C nozzle. When he levers up, using his longer wingspan to his advantage, I tuck it behind my back. In Schuster family fashion, my brother and I turn this into a stupid and arbitrary challenge, testing our reaction times in a game of keep-away. At least, until I catch the disapproving look of the passengers across the aisle.

“Damn, Kit. Watch your elbows.” Jonas lifts his Colorado Avalanche hat, runs a hand through his blond hair, then massages his cheekbone like a baby. A baby who lost.

Rolling my eyes, I go back to the article on my phone, the most recent version of what I’ve mentally been calling “The Comparison.”

“I can’t believe a flight from Denver to Reno offers free Wi-Fi,” Jonas grumbles.

THE STARTING GATE

ALPINE WORLD CUP READY TO NAME A NEW SNOW QUEEN?

By Jerry Gaper

Is it just me or has the alpine skiing tour finally gotten interesting? After years of Kit Schuster, 28, beating everyone else by comfortable margins, America’s Sweetheart has some competition in the form of Montana-born speed demon, Quinn Cochran, 23. And Quinn is all too happy to come after Schuster, already surpassing the number of World Cup victories Schuster had at the same age—50 to Kit’s 47. While Kit may be the world’s most perfect technical skier, she can’t touch Quinn’s speed, which is nothing short of thrilling to watch.

Sure, on Thursday, Schuster won this year’s Crystal Globe at Soldeu, Andorra, earning far and away the most points across all events in the FIS World Cup season. But she mainly racked up those points in the midyear events, after a slow start, and she was starting to get double-digit finishes at some of the later events. She’s all but given up being a serious threat in the downhill races, where young gun Quinn Cochran proves to be unbeatable.

While the Bland Blonde was the winningest this season, she’s certainly not the splashiest. Schuster rarely celebrates beyond a polite wave, her braids making her look more like Elsa from Frozen than one of the greatest living athletes. Cochran brings verve, an American pizzazz. She’s known to whoop at the finish line and dance at the podium. Her social

media accounts are full of celebrity cameos, giggling karaoke, and silly cooking videos with her entourage. And two weeks ago, in Fribourg, she got caught putting the “fun” in funicular with fellow downhill skier Lucas Fankhauser of Switzerland. Schuster certainly knows how to navigate bumps in the road (pun very much intended), but Quinn Cochran is clearly here to win as many people’s hearts as medals. Kit will have to come up with a little extra in her tank next season or else her career seems destined to go downhill faster than her skis do.

“Nothing new,” I sniff. Just casual misogyny and the age-old obsession with pitting two women against each other. I make sure to look as unaffected as possible as I dig out my noise-canceling headphones. Which, apparently, I’m very good at, since I lack whatever the hell pizzazz is.

I’ll take being the winningest skier in history over a bunch of Instagram followers any day. The fan in the airport who told me about this piece was right. It is catty cat shit.

“Block it out, get focused on ski mountaineering. After this off-season, you’ll be a shoo-in to qualify for the women’s individual race at Cortina, as well as your regular tech event stuff. In two years, when your neck is weighed down by all that Olympic hardware, you’re going to thank me for finding Asher McClendon.” Jonas smirks down at me. “And by ‘thank me,’ I mean pay me a huge bonus. Just so we’re clear.”

“You know, when I made you my manager, I did not agree to you hijacking my schedule. I thought we talked about some kind of private mountaineering guide, deep in remote British Columbia or something. This is not that.” I flick his knee. “You’re supposed to listen to me, the little sister who pays your salary.” Jonas, like our Austrian father, cannot be ruffled. “Yeah, but this is better.

Three weeks in Tahoe, then put that training to the test for a week in Italy, right where the next Olympics will be held. Boom! Gold medal.” Jonas flicks my knee in return. “You’re just wrecked from yesterday’s flights. You should’ve taken an Ambien.” Patronizing ass. Just because he’s right—that I am a mess after flying

sixteen hours yesterday, traveling from Andorra to Barcelona to Newark and then to Denver—doesn’t make him less of an ass. “This is how you dust Quinn. Relax.”

Does anything inspire the opposite reaction quite as much as a man telling you to relax? I push my hands out of the sleeves of my hoodie and deliver a swift right jab straight to his gut. He doubles over, mostly to be theatrical.

“Jesus, Killer.” He wheezes a bit and rubs his stomach. Kit the Killer, my childhood nickname.

I give him another glare, then pointedly put on my headphones. “If this is a waste of time when I could be training at home, I’m going to fire you.”

For the remainder of the flight, I listen to my Long Flight playlist—one an old coach made me years ago—and rework my normal spring schedule to accommodate this training outside of Lake Tahoe. After the last World Cup event of the season, I always head home to Denver at the end of March. It’s “home” with serious air quotes around it, since I stay in my brother’s basement, and really only for a month at a time. Then, I go train in Chile until it’s time to report to the US Ski Team camp in Park City in June. There’s usually a bigger trip to New Zealand in August, then I head back to Jonas’s basement for a few more weeks, until the World Cup tour starts again in October. So, moving things around in the few precious weeks I have off requires some major adjustments. I’ll still need to keep up with my spring workout schedule, and while I can relax my diet ever so slightly, it’s really not worth it to slide, because tightening things back up sucks.

I pull up my Notes app and start sketching things out.

Ski mountaineering is going to require more upper body work than I usually include in my spring workouts. I type “upper body focus” into the block of time dedicated to working out. Then, I flip through a mental catalog of workouts and drills while I stare at the seat in front of me. There can be nothing left on

the table. I am making the women’s ski mountaineering team. It’ll be the first year anyone can medal in this event, and I have to be on that podium, like I’ve been for slalom and downhill in the past. I’ve already got three medals; Quinn Cochran has none.

In skiing, the women’s record is six Olympic medals, and for an American woman, it’s four. Quinn, even if she is young, doesn’t stand a chance of getting seven or more medals in her career.

The Mozart concerto turns dark and dramatic in my headphones.

Ski mountaineering is going to come with a considerable learning curve. I’ll be climbing and descending on skis through checkpoints in a timed event. The uphill part is what I’m worried about; my whole life has been spent going fast and down. Jonas assured me the format approved by the International Olympic Committee won’t involve dangling by your fingertips on a rock ledge like some adventure athlete. I’ve got no chance of being the world’s best cliff-hanger, that’s for sure. Too many things could go wrong with the terrain. This groomed, contained version is where I can excel.

That reminds me. “What skis did you pack for me?” Jonas pulls down his own headphones and gets shifty-eyed. “What’s with the face?”

“I brought your favorite Atomic slalom skis for groomers. And all your other shit.” He shoots me a bright-blue glare warning me not to be ungrateful to my big bro. I nod. As much as I give him a hard time, Jonas did pack up all my ski equipment, boots, bibs, goggles, and coats and shipped it all out to California while I was in Soldeu for the World Cup Finals. Then last night, he packed more workout clothes and my skis and basically everything else I flew back from Europe with yesterday. He was doing laundry up until we had to leave to make this flight. When your brother packs your underwear for you, you should prob-ably cut him some slack.

“But,” he continues, “for the backcountry skiing you’ll be doing around

Tahoe and the ski mountaineering in Italy, you’ll need specific gear you don’t have. I didn’t want Atomic to send you a ton of options to try out and return. I did check with them about your sponsorship agreement, and since none of this is alpine training, you can use any brands you want this month.”

“Any brands?” I haven’t worn anything that wasn’t made by my sponsors, often specifically designed for me, since I was sixteen. My excitement quickly crashes into the safety netting. “Wait, I’m going to have to buy a bunch of new stuff ?”

He grimaces like he’s bracing for a punch.

“You’re going to make me try on skis at a local ski store,” I say flatly, picturing myself getting mobbed for selfies and slobbered on by salespeople. Generally, I can keep a low profile when I want to, but shopping in a ski store in a ski town? I’m toast.

Jonas nods grimly, sneakily rotating away from me in self-defense. “Yes. Kit Schuster—this year’s winner of the Skieur d’Or trophy for Racer of the Year and holder of the record for most World Cup wins of any alpine skier in history—is going on a shopping spree.”

AS I’M SAVING MY RUN on Strava, a notification pops up that it’ll start snowing soon. Hopefully we get more than the three inches forecasted overnight, but even three inches is enough to guarantee fresh tracks in the morning. Peeling off my moisture-wicking layers, I try to text Stoney as I hop toward the shower.

“Shit.” I’ve got a text from Jonas Schuster, brother-manager of Kit Schuster, the current “Goddess of the Giant Slalom.” As of a couple of days ago, Kit has smoked the rest of the competition for yet another season. Now she’s coming here to learn about ski mountaineering, because maybe she needs one more way to dominate the world of skiing. Jonas’s text says they’ve landed at the Reno air-port. I’ve only got about forty minutes.

In the shower, I second-guess this whole arrangement. It’s one step away from taking rich Europeans on watered-down backcountry tours with wine and foie gras and stops every night in luxury hotels. I’m not a tour guide. But when you’re as famous—and fine, as respected—as Kit Schuster is, then you get your-self a well-known mountaineer rather than a professional guide. I don’t know if she thought a professional guide, even for private lessons, was beneath her or if

she just wanted to pack it in around her year-round alpine skiing schedule, but whatever her reasons, her brother put a call in to Erik, the head of the North Face expedition team. Erik must be getting me back for the time I got him to eat live eel when we were in Chad.

I step out of the shower and throw on some clothes. In all honesty, Erik didn’t force me to do this. The outrageous fee of $50,000 did. That’s stupid money. It could go a long way toward helping my parents or figuring out what my next move will be. It’s getting harder and harder to shake down corporations for sponsorships so I can lay tracks in the remotest corners of the globe.

Now that half the money’s in my account, I’m psyched about the opportunity to train one of the best skiers in the world. And Schuster in particular. She’s a bloodthirsty robot on the slalom course, knocking down gates in these insanely precise turns, so graceful she doesn’t even look as fast as she is. I respect her athleticism, her talent and the amount of work she puts in on top of that.

The average American knows her as a reserved but friendly Girl Next Door type, famous for racing with her blonde hair in two long braids. But in professional skiing circles, she’s compared to the Terminator. She doesn’t take rest days, she doesn’t lose focus, she doesn’t miss an opportunity to push herself just that much further. And she is not here to make friends.

Even when she’s beating the competition by multiple seconds—unheard of in ski racing—she doesn’t let up. Erik told me she practices her turns from the bottom of the racecourse to the bottom of the chairlift, while everyone else just bombs downhill, since the race is over. “Highly coachable,” he told me, before adding, “Her baseline fitness will put you to shame.” And that was the combination of five-star review and unsubtle macho challenge I needed to say yes.

I walk out of my cabin as a black SUV crunches over the snow in the drive-way. Jonas Schuster pops out of the driver’s seat in a black down jacket and a burgundy Avs hat. He’s still got an athletic build, despite working full time in the business of Kit Schuster. He mentioned in one of our texts that he raced at CU but never had the unrelenting drive of his little sister.

“Hey, man.” I lope down the stairs to the rental car. “Welcome.”

He grins as we shake hands. “Your place is sick! Thanks for doing this, Asher.”

Kit climbs out of the passenger side, tall and blonde like Jonas, blue reflective lenses on her sunglasses obscuring most of her face. She’s a spokesperson for Oakley, I remember. Her beanie, with an orange pom on top, has “Ski the East” stitched into it. I read online that the Schusters grew up skiing at Mad River Glen, the classic old crank Vermont resort with single-person chairlifts and a strict “no snowboarders” policy. It’s for crusty but principled ski snobs. You can tell a lot about a skier from what mountain they grew up on.

“Congrats on the Globe,” I say as an introduction, holding my hand out to Kit. “Asher McClendon.” Clearly, there’s no reason to act like I don’t already know her name. I’ve known it for the last decade.

She doesn’t go in for the handshake or even respond to my greeting. No smile. The three of us stand in an equilateral triangle of awkward silence. Jonas gives the tiniest head shake and says, a little louder than necessary, “Can you show me where to start unloading all this stuff ?”

I stuff my hands into the front pockets of my pants and point to their lodgings with my head. “You and Kit are in the guest cabin, down the path there. We train in the barn. And you can just put the skis in the garage here.” I walk over and open the garage for him. He nods a few times, meditatively, then opens the back of the rented SUV.

Kit’s still standing in the same spot by the passenger side door. Something about the atmospheric pressure around her makes me think she’s pissed. Did she change her mind? Maybe she doesn’t want to train here with me after all. But when I look directly at her again, there’s nothing defensive or angry in her posture, just a little stiffness.

“Want to come in for something warm to drink? I’m a tea guy. Got any kind you’d want. And I make a great golden milk.” I fight the urge to keep talking, offering food and drink like when I used to work at a diner outside Yosemite, right after I dropped out of Chico State.

She looks down at her watch, tapping the screen. “Jonas,” she calls, “I’m going to need chicken and salad with extra magnesium in forty minutes.”

Oh boy. The rumors about her being a Snow Queen were not wrong.

She looks up at me for the first time. “If you’ve got soy milk, I’ll take a golden

milk with fresh ginger.” She walks past me toward the house, my house. I jog ahead to open my front door for her.

“Have a seat at the island. I’ll get this whipped up in a jiffy.” In a jiffy? Why am I talking like my mom right now? The secret to Kit’s success definitely lies in intimidation. As I pour the requested soy milk in the saucepan and add the fresh ginger and turmeric powder (thank god she didn’t ask for fresh turmeric), I consider the irony. You’d think climbers would be a silent, intimidating bunch, all hepped up on machismo and trying to “summit shit,” as Erik likes to say. Plant our flags on virgin lands. But my sport is actually full of humble tree-hugging dudes and gals who feel more of a spiritual calling to be up in the high and wild mountains than an unquenchable desire to conquer the world and destroy the competition.

This one right here, though, looks like she drinks the blood of the vanquished in her golden milk.

I sprinkle in some cinnamon and cardamom. “Maple syrup?” I ask her. She shakes her head no. Yeah, didn’t think so. I pull down two mugs. “What time zone is your body in, anyway? You won the World Cup finals like three days ago. What’s Andorra—eight hours ahead?”

“Nine.”

“Tough.” I pour the golden milk in our mugs and slide one over the counter to her. “Does it feel like midnight to you?”

She shrugs, then takes a sip. “It just feels like a mess,” she says quietly. I look down at my mug. That clicks with me. You’ve been shot through time zones like an astronaut, your stuff is scattered over multiple continents, and your sleep is off. Everything is off. Surreal. It makes you want to hold on to anything familiar.

“Want to work out? I mean, after your chicken and magnesium?”

She looks up in surprise and makes actual eye contact for the first time, no Oakleys. Her eyes are so blue. They’re the clear shade of a bluebird sky when you’re charging big mountain lines and feeling limitless. Going off the past twenty minutes, I expected Kit’s eyes to be cold and gray or shooting red lasers. Weird that they’re calling up memories of pure, unbridled joy.

“Yeah, I’d like to put a couple hours in. It’ll help me get adjusted to Pacific time.” There’re no teeth in her small smile, but she does seem grateful.

“Goji berries.”

“Goji berries?” she repeats.

I open up a cabinet full of supplements and shit. “Goji berries are good for jet lag. Here.” I hand her an unopened bag of chocolate-covered goji berries. She looks at them like they might be poisonous. We hear a car start. Jonas must be going to the grocery store. Leaving the two of us here alone.

I take our empty mugs and put them in the sink. “Want to come see where you guys will be staying?”

Julie Cook writes about food and music, then remembers she’s writing a romance novel and cuts most of that out. A South Carolina native, she moved from Southern California to Rochester, New York, which is not south of anything except Canada. With her husband, three kids, and dog, she thrives in the summer, survives in the winter, and writes early in the morning. Find her on Instagram and tell her your favorite Sandra Brown novel, sports documentary, New Yorker cartoon, or SNL sketch.

Connect with Julie via her website and Instagram!

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