The Summer Deal

A pair of guarded half-sisters learn to open up in this sweet, summery romance from Shalvis (Almost Just Friends). After 29-year-old Brynn Turner’s boyfriend breaks her heart and robs her blind to boot, she returns home to her loving but smothering moms in Wildstone, Calif., to recover. When a panic attack sends Brynn to the ER, she runs into Eli Thomas, her summer camp crush and first kiss, who’s accompanying his best friend and housemate (and Brynn’s teenage nemesis), Kinsey Davis, for a kidney transplant that falls through. As it happens, Kinsey recently discovered she and Brynn are half-sisters while searching for possible kidney donors, but she refuses to tell Brynn. Hoping to bring the sisters together, Eli offers Brynn a room in their beach house and soon falls for her. Meanwhile, single dad Deck Scott, Kinsey’s dialysis nurse and casual hookup, works to convince Kinsey that she’s more than just “a walking expiration date.” Readers will find it easy to root for Shalvis’s stubborn, vulnerable heroines to recognize both the decency and compassion of the sexy men who love them and their own worthiness to be loved. This heartfelt tale is thoroughly satisfying. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (June)