The Family You Make

Bestseller Shalvis (Love for Beginners) launches the Sunrise Cove series with a charming, emotional romance featuring a cast readers will quickly come to see as old friends. Levi Cutler and Jane Park’s first meeting is as traumatic as they come: the two are trapped in a gondola high above the Lake Tahoe ski slopes during a blizzard. The gondola in front of them has already fallen, and theirs is barely hanging on. Sure that he’s about to die, Levi makes a last call to his mother to assure her he’s happy. He even lets her think he has a girlfriend when she overhears Jane in the background. It’s a lie that turns awkward when the pair inevitably survive, leading into a fake-relationship romance between two people recovering from their own separate traumas in addition to their shared near-death experience. Meanwhile, a secondary romance between Jane’s friends, doctors Charlotte and Mateo, gives readers double the drama. After the adrenaline rush of the opening, the story settles into a comforting tale of love both romantic and platonic. The result is escapism at its finest. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (Jan.)