Whenever I’m with You

Gabi Flores and her father gave up sunny Los Angeles for Anchorage, Alaska, to escape the glare of her starlet mother’s scandalous affair. When her boyfriend, Kai, takes off unexpectedly in search of his father, Gabi braves the wilderness alongside his twin brother, Hunter, to rescue him. A nod to Into the Wild foreshadows the challenges ahead, including blinding snowstorms, brushes with hypothermia, and terrifying animal encounters. Debut author Sharp uses the great outdoors to turn prissy, high-strung Gabi into a stronger, more self-reliant version of herself, introducing Vicki—a rambunctious survivalist with a knack for hunting and the means to procure snowmobiles and a plane when they’re needed—as a foil. While the romantic dialogue between Gabi and Kai can be sugary sweet, the plot packs plenty of harrowing surprises—Gabi initially believes that Kai’s father simply abandoned the family when he’s actually presumed to be dead, for example—to keep readers turning pages. It’s a gripping wilderness adventure with sturdy romantic underpinnings. Ages 12–up. Agent: Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary. (Jan.)