Revolve by Bal Khabra Summary, Characters and Themes

Revolve by Bal Khabra is a contemporary romance set in the emotionally charged world of collegiate sports, exploring healing, trauma, and redemption. It follows Dylan Donovan, a hockey star whose career is threatened by a failed drug test, and Sierra Romanova, a figure skater rebuilding her life after a devastating accident.

When their paths cross at Dalton University, what begins as rivalry turns into an unlikely partnership—one that challenges their fears, reshapes their ambitions, and redefines love. Through tender, raw moments and fierce emotional growth, Khabra crafts a story about second chances, self-acceptance, and the courage to trust again. It’s the 3rd book in the Off The Ice series.

Summary

At Dalton University, Dylan Donovan’s life spirals after failing a drug test. Hungover and terrified, he calls his friend Vik Chopra, who admits the results can’t be hidden.

Facing suspension and the possible end of his NHL prospects, Dylan masks his panic with reckless humor. His strained relationship with his wealthy, controlling father and a recent breakup only worsen his turmoil.

When his coach unexpectedly names him team captain, Dylan feels the weight of expectations he no longer believes he can meet. At a fraternity party that night, he meets a mysterious girl with green eyes who calls him out for his arrogance, leaving him intrigued.

That girl is Sierra Romanova, a once-promising figure skater haunted by the catastrophic fall that fractured her skull and nearly ended her life. A year after her injury, Sierra is struggling to return to the ice.

Her coach urges patience, but Sierra’s determination to reclaim her career drives her to push too hard. Her trauma, paired with isolation and anxiety, keeps her trapped between ambition and fear.

At the same Beta Phi party where Dylan drowns his sorrows, Sierra faces her ex-partner Justin Petrov, who abandoned her after the accident. The confrontation shatters her confidence, and she leaves feeling humiliated.

The next morning, Dylan’s suspension becomes official. His coach offers him a chance to redeem himself by proving his discipline in other areas of campus life.

At the rink, he crosses paths with Sierra as she trains alone. Their teasing exchange brims with competitiveness and unspoken attraction.

When they later meet again at the campus clinic, their banter turns sharper, revealing both tension and curiosity. Sierra dismisses him as a cocky athlete, but Dylan finds himself drawn to her fire and pain.

As Sierra continues to battle anxiety, she returns to the rink late at night to practice, only to find Dylan already there. When she breaks down after another panic episode, Dylan helps her calm her breathing, refusing to leave her side.

His patience and empathy break through her guarded exterior. Over time, their rivalry softens into mutual respect.

Sierra learns that Dylan once competed in pairs skating with his sister before turning to hockey, which explains his familiarity with the sport. When they perform an impromptu skating challenge together, the chemistry between them ignites.

Their growing connection takes an unexpected turn when the university’s sports program pairs them as partners. Dylan’s reinstatement to the hockey team depends on his participation in Sierra’s skating program, meant to showcase responsibility and teamwork.

Both resist at first—Sierra doubts his seriousness, and Dylan fears ridicule—but their partnership slowly transforms them. On the ice, they discover synchronization and trust.

Off the ice, teasing banter deepens into emotional intimacy. When Sierra’s fear of falling resurfaces, Dylan catches her effortlessly, promising never to let her fall again.

As they train, Sierra’s walls begin to crumble. She confides in Dylan about her abusive ex-boyfriend and her physical scars from the accident.

Expecting rejection, she’s met instead with tenderness. Dylan traces her scars gently, calling them marks of survival.

Their intimacy becomes a turning point—physical closeness becomes emotional healing. Dylan shows her that her body, once a source of pain and shame, can be loved.

For him, Sierra becomes a source of calm and meaning amid the chaos of his fractured family and career.

Their relationship deepens through moments of vulnerability—a quiet night at Dylan’s house, shared laughter with friends, and a spontaneous trip to a lantern festival where Dylan reveals he’s named a playlist after her. As they release a lantern bearing their names, both recognize how deeply they’ve come to rely on each other.

Their first competition as partners tests their fragile confidence. Sierra falters mid-routine when her trauma resurfaces, but they finish together.

Though they place last, Dylan remains supportive, shielding her from criticism. When Justin mocks them afterward, Dylan’s anger reveals how protective he’s become.

Sierra begins to see Dylan not just as her partner, but as someone who understands her pain without judgment.

Yet both carry heavy baggage. Dylan’s temper and unresolved resentment toward his father come to a head during his parents’ vow renewal ceremony.

Publicly confronting his father’s infidelity and cruelty, Dylan loses control and punches him, reliving the violence he’s spent years avoiding. Ashamed, he tries to push Sierra away, but she refuses to abandon him.

Her faith in him helps him see he’s not doomed to repeat his father’s mistakes.

In the aftermath, they reaffirm their love, sealing it with confessions of honesty and devotion. Their bond strengthens further as they prepare for the Grand Prix competition, especially after learning Justin’s new team is disqualified for doping.

Determined to honor how far they’ve come, Sierra cuts her hair short as a symbol of renewal, while Dylan stands by her side with pride.

However, tragedy nearly strikes again when Dylan injures his ankle right before the competition. Hiding the pain, he skates through it, delivering a breathtaking performance with Sierra.

They win the Grand Prix, but Sierra discovers his injury afterward. Her anger fades when she realizes he risked everything not for pride, but for her dream.

Their victory cements their partnership, not just as athletes but as soulmates who’ve rebuilt each other’s faith in love and life.

Years later, Dylan and Sierra are married Olympic champions. They’ve settled into a peaceful life in Dylan’s renovated childhood home.

As a surprise, Dylan builds her a private backyard ice rink engraved with their initials beneath the ice—a tribute to the journey they took together. Their friends, now family, gather around with laughter and children, while Sierra reflects on how far she’s come: from pain and fear to love and belonging.

Together, they’ve learned that healing isn’t about forgetting the past—it’s about finding someone who makes you feel safe enough to face it.

Characters

Dylan Donovan

Dylan is introduced in Revolve at his most precarious: a high-performing hockey player whose identity is fused to athletic success, suddenly destabilized by a failed drug test and the fear of losing everything he’s built. His default coping mechanisms—sarcasm, bravado, partying, and emotional avoidance—read less like arrogance and more like practiced self-protection, especially when the story reveals the corrosive influence of a wealthy, image-obsessed family system.

Dylan’s arc is defined by displacement: hockey is taken from him, and in that forced vacuum he begins to confront grief, anger, and unmet needs he has long buried. What makes him compelling is that his confidence is real but not complete; he can be magnetic, witty, and in control in public, while privately carrying shame, loneliness, and the pressure of expectations he never asked for.

His unexpected fluency in figure skating becomes a narrative hinge—proof that he is more than his scandal and more than the “reckless athlete” label—and it reframes his drive as something deeper than ego: he wants purpose, and he wants to be chosen for who he is when he’s not winning. With Sierra, Dylan’s tenderness is not performative; he shows care through steadiness, patience, and practical comfort (grounding her through panic, honoring her scars, adapting his own life to support her goals).

His growth is also moral and emotional: he learns accountability without self-destruction, and he chooses devotion as a discipline rather than a grand gesture. By the end, Dylan’s power isn’t his talent—it’s his ability to stay present, to repair, and to build a home that finally feels safe.

Sierra Romanova

Sierra is the emotional center of Revolve, shaped by trauma that lives in both mind and body: the catastrophic skating fall, the physical scars, and the lingering PTSD that turns the ice—her lifelong home—into a threat. She appears guarded and sharp-edged, but that hardness functions as a boundary against humiliation, pity, and abandonment.

Sierra’s core conflict is not simply fear of falling again; it’s the belief that her body “betrayed” her and that love and partnership are conditional on performance. Her insistence on returning to pairs skating, even when no one will partner with her, shows both courage and self-punishment: she needs to prove she is still worthy, yet she repeatedly pushes herself into situations that trigger panic and shame.

Sierra’s relationship history—especially Justin’s abandonment—teaches her that being vulnerable is dangerous, so she tries to control her world through competence and distance. Dylan disrupts this pattern because he doesn’t treat her as fragile or as a trophy; he meets her intensity with humor and steadiness, making her feel seen without being exposed.

Sierra’s arc is a gradual redefinition of strength: she learns that healing isn’t “getting back to who she was,” but becoming someone who can accept care, take up space, and believe she is safe even when she isn’t perfect. Her therapy sessions show how self-blame has become habitual, and her growth comes when she stops treating love as a debt she must earn and starts experiencing it as something mutual.

By the epilogue, Sierra’s triumph is not just medals—it’s reclaiming her body as her own, her future as hers, and intimacy as something that can coexist with fear.

Vik Chopra

Vik serves as the story’s early reality check and a mirror for Dylan’s recklessness, embodying the “responsible friend” role without being reduced to a stereotype. As a premed student with access to systems Dylan doesn’t understand, Vik becomes a symbol of how privilege and desperation tempt people to bend rules, even when the consequences are serious.

His warning that delaying results is nearly impossible frames the drug test fallout as inevitable, forcing Dylan to face consequences rather than fantasize about an escape route. Vik’s importance is less romanticized than the athletes’ arcs, but he anchors the narrative’s ethical tension: friendship can motivate support, yet it can’t erase accountability.

Kian Ishida

Kian is Dylan’s lifelong friend and the chaos-adjacent roommate who helps establish the hockey-house culture of humor, noise, and impulsivity. His presence emphasizes how normalized excess has become for Dylan—hangovers, parties, and denial are routine enough to be joked about—making Dylan’s spiral feel socially reinforced rather than purely individual.

Kian functions as both comfort and camouflage: with him, Dylan can keep everything light, dodge emotional truths, and pretend the stakes aren’t life-altering. Even when he’s not driving the central plot, Kian’s role is crucial because he represents the world Dylan might remain trapped in if he never grows up or never finds a healthier anchor.

Coach Kilner

Coach Kilner is a pragmatic authority figure who blends discipline with an unusual willingness to rehabilitate rather than discard. Naming Dylan captain at the worst possible moment forces Dylan into a leadership role he doesn’t feel he deserves, exposing the gulf between how others see him (talented, influential) and how he sees himself (one mistake away from ruin).

After the suspension, Kilner’s approach is strategic: he recognizes that redemption requires visible effort and structured responsibility, which is why he supports the condition that Dylan join figure skating as proof of discipline and character. Kilner’s role is not simply punitive; he’s a gatekeeper to second chances, insisting that growth is demonstrated through action, not promises.

Tyler Sampson

Tyler’s decision to step down as captain is a catalytic absence rather than a fully explored presence, but it matters because it creates a vacuum that Dylan must fill while hiding his crisis. Tyler represents the stability and conventional leadership Dylan is suddenly expected to embody, increasing Dylan’s internal conflict and intensifying the theme of “image versus truth.” Even with limited on-page detail, Tyler’s function is structural: his departure marks the moment Dylan’s life stops being only about personal choices and becomes about responsibility to others.

Scarlett

Scarlett is Sierra’s roommate and fiercest protector, blending warmth with a no-nonsense backbone that keeps Sierra tethered to daily life. Her premed background and caretaking instincts allow her to notice what Sierra hides, while her social confidence helps pull Sierra back into the world when isolation starts to win.

Scarlett’s loyalty is not passive; she actively shields Sierra at the party, supports her recovery routines, and assesses Dylan with a protective skepticism that feels earned rather than controlling. In many ways, Scarlett represents the kind of love Sierra already knows how to accept: practical, consistent, and non-romantic, which becomes an important bridge to trusting romantic intimacy later.

Lidia Orlov

Lidia is the coach who understands that ambition without safety can become self-harm, and she navigates Sierra’s comeback with a mix of patience and professional realism. Her coaching reflects trauma-informed care even when she doesn’t name it that way: she encourages gradual progress, respects Sierra’s fear, and still honors Sierra’s need for agency by supporting the search for a partner.

Lidia’s presence reinforces that Sierra’s identity isn’t only romantic or emotional—she is an athlete with a craft, and Lidia is one of the few figures who consistently sees Sierra as capable without demanding perfection.

Justin Petrov

Justin is the narrative’s clearest example of conditional loyalty: someone who benefited from partnership with Sierra until her injury made her inconvenient. His “apology” attempts read less like repair and more like a bid to reclaim comfort, which is why his words reopen wounds rather than heal them.

Justin’s cruelty is often subtle—public success, private dismissiveness, and targeted comments like “Anchor” that weaponize shared history—making him a realistic antagonist because he doesn’t need to be monstrous to be damaging. His later disqualification for doping sharpens the story’s moral contrast: he chose shortcuts and image management, while Sierra and Dylan choose painful honesty and earned progress.

Justin ultimately represents what Sierra fears most—that she will be abandoned when she’s vulnerable—and the story’s tension rises whenever he appears because he tests whether Sierra believes she is worth staying for.

Julia Romero

Julia is framed as Sierra’s rival and Justin’s new partner, embodying the life Sierra imagines she lost: the “replacement” who gets the spotlight and the successful partnership. Even when Julia isn’t deeply characterized, her function is psychologically potent—she is a living comparison point that triggers Sierra’s shame, competitiveness, and grief.

Julia also reflects how easily narratives are rewritten in sports: a new pair can look seamless from the outside, while the person left behind is expected to disappear quietly.

Summer Preston

Summer operates as a socially connected friend who delivers real-world consequences—like the campus newspaper coverage—without melodrama. She helps highlight how public Dylan’s downfall becomes and how little control he has once the story escapes him.

Summer’s dynamic with Dylan also humanizes him in a different way than Sierra does: with friends, Dylan defaults to joking, deflecting, and performing “fine,” and Summer’s presence shows how that performance is maintained.

Aiden

Aiden functions as the friend who pushes past Dylan’s defenses, calling out the spiral and refusing to accept surface-level jokes as truth. His role in the intervention moments positions him as an accountability figure rather than just comic relief, and his promise to help Dylan regain his position underscores the story’s emphasis on support systems.

Aiden represents the healthier version of masculinity in Dylan’s orbit: care expressed through directness, loyalty without enabling, and action over empty reassurance.

Mehar

Mehar appears as part of Dylan’s reckless party week, but her narrative role is meaningful because she symbolizes the blurred line between indulgence and self-sabotage. Rather than being defined by romance, she’s tied to the consequences Dylan is trying to outrun—alcohol, drugs, and the sense that he’s losing control.

Mehar functions as a marker of the “before” version of Dylan, when escape felt easier than change.

Dr. Toor

Dr. Toor provides the clearest lens into Sierra’s internal logic, helping articulate the beliefs that keep Sierra stuck: that she is “too much and not enough,” that her body betrayed her, and that she must manage everyone’s choices to prevent future pain. The therapeutic dynamic highlights Sierra’s long history of pressure and perfectionism, showing that trauma didn’t start with the accident—it simply intensified patterns that were already present.

Dr. Toor’s guidance doesn’t “fix” Sierra; it reframes responsibility and safety, allowing Sierra to see that Dylan’s choices are his, and that healing requires cooperation with herself rather than constant war.

Dale Thunderman

Dale Thunderman is a small but telling detail: a personalized gift that shows Dylan learns Sierra’s comforts and takes them seriously, even when they seem silly to others. His inclusion highlights how intimacy is built through attention—Dylan’s love isn’t only dramatic protection on the ice, it’s also curiosity about what makes Sierra smile on an ordinary day.

Themes

Healing and Self-Acceptance

In Revolve, healing is not presented as a clean or linear process but as a series of relapses, reckonings, and rediscoveries. Both Dylan and Sierra are burdened by trauma—his stemming from familial abuse, shame, and public scandal, and hers from physical injury, emotional betrayal, and self-alienation.

Their journeys toward healing are grounded in the body and the psyche: Sierra’s scars are visible reminders of pain, while Dylan’s are emotional fissures hidden beneath arrogance. The novel constructs healing as an act of courage rather than perfection.

Sierra’s struggle to reclaim her body after her accident mirrors Dylan’s attempt to reclaim his sense of worth after his fall from grace. Each time they confront their respective fears—whether it’s Sierra stepping back onto the ice or Dylan facing his father—the story reinforces the idea that recovery requires vulnerability.

Healing is also shown as a relational process; their connection becomes a mirror that reflects the strength and fragility within both. By showing Dylan’s unwavering care and Sierra’s growing trust, the novel insists that self-acceptance often begins through the empathy of another.

Yet, even love isn’t portrayed as a cure—it’s a catalyst that pushes them to confront themselves rather than escape their pain. The culmination of their journeys—when Sierra accepts her scars and Dylan reconciles with his past—signifies that healing is about integration, not erasure.

It’s the act of reclaiming what was once a source of shame and allowing it to coexist with love, ambition, and hope.

Love as Redemption

Love in Revolve is not romantic idealism but an act of salvation grounded in imperfection. Dylan and Sierra’s relationship is born from shared brokenness rather than fairy-tale harmony.

Their attraction initially appears to be physical, but it gradually transforms into a deeply emotional refuge where each learns to confront the wounds they’ve been avoiding. Through love, Dylan learns gentleness and self-restraint—qualities foreign to the aggression and ego fostered in his family and sport.

For Sierra, love becomes the space where she reclaims agency over her body and emotions, something both her abusive ex and her trauma had stripped away. The intimacy between them, whether emotional or physical, is portrayed as sacred; each touch becomes a declaration that brokenness does not negate worthiness.

The novel resists the notion that love erases pain—instead, it argues that love provides the strength to face it. Redemption here is mutual: Sierra redeems Dylan from the cycle of guilt and violence inherited from his father, and Dylan redeems Sierra from the belief that she is irreparably damaged.

Their union is both healing and unsettling because it demands honesty and surrender. By the end, when they build a life defined by partnership rather than dependency, love has evolved from passion into purpose.

It becomes a testament to transformation—proof that redemption is not about forgetting one’s past but using it to build a gentler, truer future.

Trauma and Resilience

The novel presents trauma as an omnipresent force shaping both identity and destiny, yet it refuses to let it be the final word. Sierra’s trauma manifests in panic attacks, self-doubt, and a fractured relationship with her own body.

Dylan’s is emotional—a product of betrayal, parental manipulation, and public humiliation. What unites them is their shared pattern of self-destruction: Sierra through overexertion and Dylan through recklessness.

The narrative allows their trauma to breathe; it’s not treated as a background detail but as a living entity influencing every decision and interaction. Resilience, however, is not glorified as invincibility.

It’s shown in the quiet, often painful choices—to seek therapy, to return to the rink, to forgive oneself. The presence of therapy in Sierra’s storyline is particularly important—it anchors her recovery in realism rather than romantic rescue.

Dylan’s resilience surfaces through confrontation, especially with his father, symbolizing the breaking of generational cycles of abuse. The story’s message is that resilience is not the absence of fear but the persistence of hope despite it.

The final scenes, where they skate together as equals, embody this resilience. They no longer move to prove survival but to celebrate it.

By intertwining physical performance with emotional strength, the book emphasizes that trauma reshapes but does not define; it leaves marks, but those marks can become the architecture of something enduring and beautiful.

Identity and Self-Worth

Revolve constructs identity as something constantly negotiated between expectation, failure, and self-recognition. Both protagonists live under the weight of others’ definitions—Sierra as the prodigy whose fall defined her career, and Dylan as the privileged athlete whose talent is tainted by scandal.

Their arcs are parallel in their struggle to reclaim authorship of their lives. Dylan’s sense of self has long been determined by external validation—his family’s wealth, his coach’s praise, his draft potential.

When all of that collapses, he is forced to confront the void beneath. Sierra’s identity, meanwhile, fractures when her accident reduces her from athlete to cautionary tale.

Her recovery becomes not just physical but existential, as she learns to separate her worth from performance. The partnership between them becomes an experiment in rebuilding identity through authenticity.

Dylan’s willingness to learn figure skating again—a discipline tied to vulnerability and grace—symbolizes his departure from toxic masculinity. Sierra’s ability to let him see her scars marks her acceptance of imperfection as part of selfhood.

The novel ultimately suggests that self-worth cannot be inherited, bestowed, or proven through success; it must be constructed through self-compassion. Their victory at the Grand Prix is powerful not because it restores public admiration but because it represents their internal reconciliation.

They win not by returning to who they were but by becoming who they finally choose to be.

Family and Generational Cycles

Family in Revolve functions as both a source of pain and a foundation for change. Dylan’s fractured home—ruled by an abusive, domineering father and a submissive mother—shapes his fear of becoming the very thing he despises.

His anger and impulsivity mirror learned behaviors, and his eventual confrontation with his father becomes the emotional climax of his arc. The public outburst at the vow renewal ceremony is less about rebellion and more about liberation—the moment he rejects the pretense of perfection his family demanded.

His mother’s later decision to leave reflects the breaking of that generational pattern, showing that cycles of violence and silence can be undone through courage. Sierra’s family dynamic, though less violent, is equally suffocating in its control.

Her parents’ inability to see her beyond her athletic success traps her in the role of the fragile prodigy. Her journey toward independence involves redefining what family means—choosing emotional safety over duty.

Together, Dylan and Sierra create an alternative model of family built on equality, understanding, and mutual respect. The closing scenes, set years later in their home filled with friends and laughter, signify the reclamation of legacy.

Family is no longer a prison but a choice—one shaped not by blood but by love, accountability, and growth. Through this, the novel argues that true inheritance is not wealth or reputation but the courage to stop repeating the past and begin something better.