First Love, Take Two

Patel follows The Trouble with Hating You with this witty second-chance romance. Preeti Patel is a fourth-year medical resident battling crippling anxiety as she interviews for full-time jobs and works to please her parents by dutifully dating a man of their same culture and religion. With her close friend and roommate, Reema, days away from returning from her honeymoon with her husband in tow to take over their apartment, Preeti adds looking for a new place to live to her list of stressors. Her prayers are answered when her friend Liya offers Preeti use of her vacant apartment until Preeti finds a more permanent place, but there’s a catch: Preeti’s first love, Daniel Thompson, is also crashing at Liya’s place. Daniel has never understood why Preeti left him six years before, and he intends to use their newfound roommate status to get answers. What follows is the type of laugh-out-loud-banter romance readers long for. Patel balances a swoon-worthy love story with a sensitive, sympathetic look at the effects of Preeti’s anxiety. Readers will care deeply about Daniel’s and Preeti’s evolution as individuals and champion their reunion. This is a crowd pleaser. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Sept.)