ROGERS PARK — A tumultuous story about a pair of star-crossed ice dancers doesn’t exactly scream “summer.” But over the past few months, Layne Fargo’s bestselling novel “The Favorites” (Penguin/Random House) became one of the season’s most popular beach reads.

In the vein of fellow bestsellers like Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones and the Six,” the Rogers Park resident’s novel uses epistolary techniques to convey the riveting story through numerous (fictional) interviews as well as the narration of Katarina, an extremely ambitious ice dancer.

Growing up in rural Illinois north of Chicago, Katarina drafts her brooding childhood friend, Heath, into becoming her ice dance partner. The intense, competitive world on the ice leads the pair into one dramatic peak and valley after another on t

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