Bluebird Day by Megan Tady
Bluebird Day is an uplifting second novel by Megan Tady that deftly blends humor, romance and pathos. Tady’s debut work of fiction, Super Bloom, received an Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Gold medal for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast in 2023. In 2011, this successful writer, journalist, and editor established and now manages the communications consulting business Word-Lift.
A Multi-Generational Skiing Dynasty
Bluebird Day’s co-protagonists Claudine Potts and her estranged daughter Wylie alternate chapters as narrators. They haven’t spoken in two years having been driven apart by misunderstandings bred by a lack of honest communication but their love does abide, albeit buried under years of resentments.
Wylie is the reluctant third-generation member of a legendary alpine skiing dynasty who failed to live up to her athletic promise by abruptly abandoning the sport on the eve of the crucial Junior Olympics Championship. A place on the podium would have paved the way for membership on the Olympic Ski Team.
Crippling, nauseating anxiety eroded her competitive edge along with the desire to win. Her decision to go to college as an art major instead of pressing on created an enormous rift in their small family. The letters “DNF” indicating “Did Not Finish” behind a contestant’s name is a badge of dishonor which Grandfather Kipling “Kipper” Potts reviled because unquestionably “giving up is worse than losing” and even more zealously, any medal less than gold is simply dross.
A Mother’s Skiing Legacy Crushed
Kipper was the first alpine ski champion in their family, winning an Olympic gold medal in 1972 and then turning his attention to training his only child Claudine who subsequently surpassed this achievement as the superior athlete.
Claudine is widely considered the greatest all-time alpine skier, having won five Olympic gold medals, one silver and one bronze as well as shelves full of World Cup championships. She was actively competing and barely 22 years old when she gave birth to Wylie. Whenever asked who the father was, her pat reply was, “a ski bum.”
A spectacular and horrific bone-shattering accident during a world-class event, witnessed by her young daughter, took her permanently out of competition. This racing phenomenon dubbed “The Stone-Cold Killer” lost her sponsors and source of income. She then turned her talent to training Wylie to follow in her footsteps in a bid to pick up ski team funds.
Time has been a healer for the now 48-year-old still super-fit athlete who is happily married, seeing a therapist, and is the face of CycleTron, an elite, grueling online Spin cycle class with a huge following of “Pottheads,” as they have chosen to call themselves. Billboards and social media ads display her power cycling with the motto: “train with a G.O.A.T.” (Greatest of all time athlete). Behind the scenes, arthritis in her knees threatens to mar her image and derail her partnership with CycleTron.
A Daughter’s Life, and Love, Implodes
Wylie is now 26 years old with a soul-satisfying job at an art museum assisting in planning and installing exhibitions with promotional opportunities. Despite being home-schooled due to training requirements, she was able to excel in art studies in college after switching from constructing collages to a painting major.
Dan is her classically handsome Italian-American live-in boyfriend, babied since birth by his doting mother. For the past two years, they have been endlessly training for a BodyFittest Duo Competition with a top prize of $50,000, now only six days away in Berlin, Germany. Wylie hasn’t tasted sugar, flour or any delicious empty calories in two years, determinedly working out and gaining strength every spare minute.
Airline tickets are purchased, bags nearly packed and passports at the ready. They are confident of the win until Dan tears his Achilles tendon effectively putting him in the hospital and out of commission for several months post-surgery.
Wylie’s disappointment is compounded by betrayal when Dan confesses they have to win as he owes $32,000 as a result of his secret sports betting addiction. Gone is the thought of a wedding and down payment on a condo as he groggily persuades her to team up with her estranged mother and head for Berlin.
Snowed-In with Colorful Strangers
Prompted by desperation, Wylie phones her mother who surprises her by readily agreeing to compete with the proviso they make a brief detour to Zermatt to scatter Kipper’s ashes.
No longer poor, Claudine remains fiscally conservative booking them in a tiny room for one night in a hostel in this picturesque Swiss Village during the height of ski season. It seems she has some unfinished business with a former friend and alpine ski rival. An inconvenient avalanche the following morning rattles the walls and windows, temporarily shutting down power and sealing the village off from the outer world. The train tunnel is blocked and there is no easy way in or out.
Although Claudine and Wylie may not make it out in time for the competition in Berlin, mother and daughter are given the opportunity to make amends, forgive each other and strive for understanding or sever contact permanently ending their relationship. Against the backdrop of the towering Matterhorn, they are compelled to confront their troubled relationship while unlocking secrets buried as deeply as the snow drifts.
The days ahead may be fraught but they are also filled with rollicking good fun with the addition of a vibrant, colorful cast of supporting characters who are also sequestered guests of the hostel. They include a cheerfully exuberant middle-aged lesbian couple and the 13 members of Sings to Excess, an American a capella group, on a European concert tour.
The group’s charismatic leader, Calvin, is drop-dead gorgeous as well as incredibly talented and electricity fills the air when he meets Wylie, although she informs him she is in a relationship. The two upbeat hostel managers provide good food and are willing listeners.
An Adventurous, Satisfying Winter Frolic
Strolling the quiet, peaceful village in dazzling sunlight, singing, dancing and consuming previously verboten pastries and great hunks of bread covered in butter begins to heal the cracks in Wylie’s heart and allow her to examine what choices she will make when she returns home. Claudine and Wylie are beginning to realize love and acceptance were given short shrift in their previous competition-oriented lives.
Acrimony, action and adventure balance the fun, frolic and possible romance twinkling its promise in this most satisfying Bluebird Day.
Megan Tady has a delightfully entertaining and comprehensive website with information about herself, her publications and links to podcasts and interviews. Romance and women’s fiction readers are certain to enjoy her work which compares favorably with other authors who write about complicated relationships including Nora Roberts, Emily Henry, Maggie Shipstead, Celeste Ng and Jhumpa Lahiri among a multitude of others.
Megan Tady is the author of Bluebird Day, forthcoming from Zibby Books, and Super Bloom, published May 2023, also via Zibby Books. Super Bloom was awarded an IPPY Gold medal for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast. She runs the freelance writing and editing company Word-Lift. Her writing has appeared in Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest, The Huffington Post and Ms. Magazine, among others. Megan lives in Western Massachusetts with her family.
