“Fall in love with Jill Shalvis! She’s my go-to read for humor and heart.”— Susan Mallery, New York Times bestselling author
Beloved New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis begins a new series—Sunrise Cove—set near beautiful Lake Tahoe, with a heartwarming story of found family and love.
During the snowstorm of the century Levi Cutler is stranded on a ski lift with a beautiful stranger named Jane. After strong winds hurl the gondola in front of them into the ground, Levi calls his parents to prepare them for the worst…but can’t bring himself to say goodbye. Instead, wanting to fulfill his mother’s lifelong wish, he impulsively tells her he’s happily settled and Jane is his girlfriend—right before his phone dies.
But Levi and Jane do not.
Now Levi’s family is desperate to meet “The One.” Though Jane agrees to be his pretend girlfriend for just one dinner, she’s nervous. After a traumatic childhood, Jane isn’t sure she knows how to be around a tight-knit family that cherishes one another. She’s terrified, and a little jealous. But an unexpected series of events and a host of new friends soon show Jane that perhaps this is the life she was always meant to have.
As Jane and Levi spend more time together, pretend feelings quickly turn into real ones. Now all Jane has to do is admit to herself she can’t live without the man she’s fallen in love with and the family she has always dreamed of.
Hi all, it’s Jill Shalvis here! The set up for my latest book THE FAMILY YOU MAKE came to me a long time ago. Two strangers alone on a gondola in the blizzard of the century, when the gondola in front of them goes down. What happens when you really believe you’re going to die? Well, in the case of Levi, our hero, he calls his mom to tell her goodbye – only he can’t do it to her. So instead, he tells her what she knows she’s always wanted to hear from him, that he’s happy in love and she shouldn’t worry.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler alert to tell you that our two perfect strangers don’t die. 🙂
But the new problem is, Levi has to produce the love of his life – who doesn’t exist…
Let me tease you with a tidbit from chapter one:
The gondola in front of them appear to drop a few feet and then fall, vanishing from view.
She gasped in horror. “Oh my God! Did that gondola just . . . ?”
“Yeah. Hold on,” he said grimly. As he said this, their gondola came to a sudden stuttering halt, leaving them swinging wildly back and forth, flinging both of them and all their stuff far and wide. Levi went with the momentum and ended up face-planted against the window, kissing the cold glass.
Something hit him in the back.
His pack.
And then a softer something. His companion. She hurriedly scrambled clear of him to stare out the window at the gaping chasm where the previous gondola used to be. “Ohmigod,” she whispered, her nose to the window, as if that could help see past the thick, swirling, all-encompassing snow. “Was anyone in it?”
“The lift operator told me that the three cars in front of us were empty.”
She leveled him with those amazing eyes, narrowed now. “So much for a gondola fall being one in a million!” She yanked out her phone and stared down at it. “Dammit. I forgot it’s dead.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll know what happened at base. They’ll come for us.”
She let out a slow exhale, looking pale and shaky.
“We’re still on the cable,” he said, looking out the window in front of them. “It didn’t break. That gondola in front of us snagged on something on the track, or there was a malfunction in the grip—”
She let out a distressed sound and squeezed her eyes shut. “You know what really gets me? I put on mascara today. A waste of five minutes that I could’ve used to stop for a breakfast burrito. I mean, that’s what a girl needs on the day she’s going to die, a solid breakfast burrito to hold her over to the ever after.”
“I like breakfast burritos,” he said. He didn’t offer any empty platitudes because the truth was her fears were valid. Their gondola wasn’t moving now, no forward or reverse motion at all, nothing except the relentless swinging in the wind. He didn’t know what had caused the gondola in front of them to fall, but if theirs did the same, the odds of them walking away were slim to none. First up was getting them to stop swinging so freely, and he began to calculate the balance and weight needed to stabilize the car. “Hey, do you think you can get all the way into that back corner there?”
She blinked, but didn’t question him, just did as he asked, crawling to where he pointed while he moved into the opposite corner.
“You do realize this only works if we weigh the same,” she said.
“We’ll use our gear to even things out.” His backpack was at his feet. “What have you got with you?”
She lifted her hands out to her sides. “Just what you see.”
“You came up on the mountain with nothing on you—no snacks, no water, no emergency gear or equipment?”
“Didn’t say that. And judgy much?” She emptied out her many pockets. Steel water bottle, a single-serving bag of beef jerky, a pack of gum, and . . . a small first aid kit, which she held up for Levi to see. “Safety first, right?” she murmured, irony heavy in her tone.
He’d noticed the medical patch across the back of her jacket. “Ski patrol?”
“RN,” she said. “I’m a traveling nurse, working a rotation at each of the five urgent care medical clinics in the north shore area.” She once again waved her first aid kit. “I’m qualified to save people’s lives—even if I can’t manage to get my own together.”
He started to smile, but another hard gust of wind hit and they spun like a toy, so fast they just about went topsy-turvy. There was a sound of metal giving way—the shelf above his head for passenger belongings—and Levi lunged to shield her body with his.
Everything flew in the air like they were in orbit, and for a single long heartbeat, gravity seemed to vanish. Levi wrapped himself tight around his companion, her head tucked into his chest when something hit his head.
And then it was lights out.
On Instagram
vilmairisblog
💻: marketing director at @dell
☁️: books + beauty + style + life
🍬: Sugar Rush charms - 🎄 Drop 11/9 @ 9am CST
👇🏻: Read my blog + shop my IG + charms