Sometimes, there is so much happiness in a story that I don't know where to even begin reviewing.

This is one of those stories.

Whatever boxes you like to check off in your romance / women's fiction reads, I promise you this story will have them.

My mind, my heart and my soul were all happy and cocooned in a giant bubble of hope thru this entire story. I cannot rec this story enough!

🎧︎The Family You Make is the first book in the brand new Sunrise Cove series. My expectations for this one were high and in true Shalvis form, it did not disappoint. The visit to Sunset Cove was filled with heart tugging moments, humour, awesome characters, passion and not one but two lovely romance.

The beginning of 🎧︎The Family You Make saw the main characters, Jane and Levi, stranded on gondola during a freak snowstorm. When the gondola in front falls to the ground, they knew they were in trouble. Fearing the worst, Levi calls his mom to tell her goodbye. But then he couldn’t go through it and instead led her to believe that Jane was his girlfriend. A revelation which made her ecstatic.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, one could not help the laughter that bubbled up occasionally during Jane and Levi’s interactions. These two developed a bond during their hair-raising experience and the fact they survived made it even more special.

While Levi may have survived his time in the gondola, he faces an even greater problem. His family wanted to meet Jane. If only he could convince her to be his pretend to be his girlfriend until his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary dinner.

Jane and Levi were wonderful characters. Jane fears forming relationships as based on her experience, the ones you love abandon you. So she left first. Levi is dealing with his share of pain, but after meeting Jane, he wants to take a chance on love. Then there are Charlotte and Mateo. These two were definitely made for each other. However, issues from Charlotte’s past hinder her from opening her heart. Levi and Mateo had faced many walls in the pursuit of the women they knew were meant for them.

The romances that developed between our characters were sweet and passionate. I enjoyed them both and became invested in their journey to happily ever after.

Levi’s family members were a hoot. They loved meddling in his life, but it’s all done out of love. The lengths they went through to meet Jane cracked me up. 

Narration

This is my second time listening to Erin Mallon’s narration, and it was a pleasurable experience. She has a great array of voices for all the characters. Charlotte’s southern accent sounded authentic. She did a great job with portraying the characters’ emotion, which added depth to the story.


Conclusion/Recommendation

🎧︎The Family You Make is a beautiful story that will make you laugh, cry and swoon. Its a story of healing, forgiveness, love, family and friendships. It demonstrates that family isn’t necessarily made up of blood relations. Family represents the people in your life who will stand with you through the good and the bad times. The people who accepts you the way you are. There were so many things to love about this story.  The  delightful characters, the gorgeous setting and the variety of themes highlighted throughout the story.

Special thanks to @jillshalvis @getredprbooks #WilliamMorrow and #NetGalley for the #gifted copy of The Family You Make in exchange for an honest review.

The new series—Sunrise Cove—set near beautiful Lake Tahoe, is a heartwarming story of found family and love. Levi and Jane are stranded on a ski lift in the middle of a snowstorm. 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 that he’s happily settled and Jane is his girlfriend. Levi and Jane survive. But now, the family wants to meet the woman that captured Levi’s heart.

Romance is not my typical genre, so it takes a terrific story for me to recommend a romance novel. And this one, I definitely recommend!

Here’s what I love:
💕 Tropes - Fake romance and Trauma (near death & past trauma) - neither felt forced and both offered character growth
💕Found family - loved, loved, loved Levi’s family!
💕Funny moment equal to the swoony moments so the book didn’t feel overly cheesy
💕Loved the epilogue!!! If you know me, I usually say the opposite, so this is huge! I thought the epilogue was terrific - a perfect HEA without feeling too tidy or as an afterthought.

What I wish was different:
❄️ Side-Character storyline - Char & Mateo, friends of Levi & Jane, also have a brewing romance. I wish they were book 2 instead of a side story. I wanted more of them.

This book is a perfect winter romance, and I look forward to reading book 2 in the Sunset Cove Series. I can't wait to see who falls in love next - Levi’s sister? Regardless, I hope we get more of Levi’s family! 😍

Every time I pick up a Jill Shalvis novel, I am thankful that she is so reliable–and by reliable I in no way mean predictable, boring, or repetitive. Shalvis is a one-of-a-kind who provides her readers with stories burgeoning with heart and humanity. Take her new novel, The Family You Make, which is part of her new Sunrise Cove series and introduces us to not one awesome couple but two.

Levi and Jane catch the last gondola down the ski slope as a blizzard blows in. Jane is terrified of heights (which would make her and me besties) and Levi does his best to assuage her fears. And then the gondola in front of their crashes hundreds of feet to the ground. The possibility that they might not survive makes Levi call his mother to say goodbye but instead thinking it would make her happy tells her instead that he’s with his “The One.”

Meanwhile, next door neighbors Mateo and Charlotte, both doctors at the local hospital, battle constantly, a battle which is actually based on attraction that Charlotte would 100% refuse to admit to until the situation gets to a point where she can no longer deny the truth to herself.

Both couples are adorable and you can’t help but root for each one as they slog through murky pasts (well, not Mateo and to a lesser degree than the ladies, Levi) to bring themselves to trust and move through past hurts.

Particular things I loved: Levi’s unruly family who think nothing of stalking his new girlfriend, Jasper the labradoodle, Jane’s grandfather, Mateo, the food, and Charlotte’s mad snowball-fight skills.

The typical things that Shalvis does bring to her novels: witty dialogue, heart, and a wide range of realistic emotions are, thankfully, in place making The Family You Make a warm-hearted novel that will bring smiles, tears, and laughter to you as you read this unforgettable book.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel had a real fast start as the first scene is inside the gondola and sets the pace pretty quickly. Our two protagonists are pretty different. Levi is a tech guy who was brought up in an outdoorsman family and Jane is a loner who had been shuffled from family member to family member, never really belonging to anyone. Surprisingly it was easy to see how they were a good fit. Levi also was an outsider within his own family, or at least that was how he saw it. He understands Jane and doesn’t let her standoffishness scare her off. I liked his persistence and loved that she was hesitant but also bold.

I can always count on Jill Shalvis to write in a great group of friends who are quirky and interesting, giving the main characters some relief from having to carry a book. There is a side romance in this novel between Levi and Jane’s best friends that is interesting and cute. I am hoping we get to explore their relationship further in a future book! I am also looking forward to seeing Levi’s sister get her own story as she’s got an interesting arc of her own that needs exploring!

If you’re looking for a good weekend read that won’t take too long to get through, then The Family You Make may be the right book for you. I read it on my vacation and it hit my sweet spot for fun characters that will take me away from the drag of hours of flying, making the time go by quickly. It was a sweet, cute story with some emotional depth for our main characters and the right book at the right time for me!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!

I just loved this book! The writing is effortless and uncomplicated, while the plot moves along at a captivating pace. Never a dull moment when Jane, a traveling nurse, and Levi, a data scientist, find themselves sharing a gondola during a horrific snowstorm in Lake Tahoe. Their relationship is unique in so many ways. As an added bonus, doctors Charlotte and Mateo evolve their sometimes wacky flirting into true love. Two amazing couples, good friends, and interesting family members comprise this well-written tale about trust, discovery and love.

This is the first book from the author's brand new series Sunrise Cove, and it can be enjoyed as a standalone.

Complimentary copy provided by the author via NetGalley.

The Family You Make was a great winter romance that grabbed me from the very first sentence. It is the first book in the Sunrise Cove series by Jill Shalvis. Jill Shalvis has written yet another winner, she is truly a masterful storyteller in the genre of romance. In this winter story we are introduced to the main characters Mateo, Charlotte, Levi, and Jane. We are introduced to Levi and Jane’s characters first. The story starts off with Levi and Jane first meeting while trying to get off a mountain in the middle of a dangerous snowstorm. Then we are introduced to Mateo and Charlotte who are both doctors at the same hospital and also neighbors. Charlotte is also roommate and a friend of Jane’s and Mateo is also Levi’s best friend. I loved the interaction between the characters, especially between Levi and his nosy family members, their interactions had me laughing out loud at times. Will they get their happily ever after, read this great story to find out.

Levi and Jane meet in one of the worst ways. On a gondola which may or may not fall hundreds of feet in a raging storm killing them both. Not your typical meet cute. Jane keeps herself cut off from most off relationships but Levi is someone she can't seem to cut out. Their best friends Matteo and Charlotte are secondary characters and love interests in this story and we get their story as well. Love the friendship between Charlotte and Jane. Both had trauma in their past and were there for each other. It took me about one chapter to fall in love with these characters. Great first book in the series. I look forward to more.

This was a very good holiday read, Jane and Levi's story was emotional and sometimes very intense. All the characters in the story were fantastic. I have enjoyed Jill Shalvis stories before, and I do enjoy her writing. Would recommend this book to anyone wanting to read an emotional holiday read.

This book is perfect for curling up in a comfy chair with a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, and a furry friend. It's charming, heartwarming, and has a relatively good amount of character and story depth, which is Jill Shalvis' forte. Every character is incredibly likable and readers will eagerly turn pages to get to that HEA. I just with that two of the slightly secondary characters, Charlotte and Mateo, had more of a spotlight in the story. I really liked Jane and Levi, but Charlotte and Mateo are so interesting that I found myself wishing there were more pages to their portion of the story. And while there's some steam to fog up the windows, avid romance readers may crave a bit more heat instead of the fade-to-black. But I still enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone looking for a heartwarming and wry-humor romance story.

This started off moderately strong for me and then fizzled out as it went on. There are a lot of loose ends that never really get tied up, and it gets a bit too cheesy for my personal taste (I don’t mind a good, cheesy story, but I have my limits).

It’s also worth mentioning — there are some one-off, diet culture comments here (like saying that a muffin is an “entire day’s calories”) and I cannot believe that in 2021 we are still including this sort of harmful diet chatter in our books.

On the bright side, the characters are pretty likable (although I found myself wanting more from the secondary love story!)

If you’re a Hallmark movie lover, you’ll probably enjoy this. If not, skip it.

Shalvis proves that actions speak louder than words. Levi and Jane may be the main characters, but it's the emotion that steals the show. The Family You Make pushes the heart to it's limit with thought provoking accuracy and unpredictable soul. Shalvis refuses to gloss over the painful but finds balance in the awkward moments of heartache and hope. What transpires is a deeply moving and ever evolving journey of discovery that anyone can relate to.

A fabulous read about two women whose bad life experiences have left them loathe to cozy up to a dating life and two best friends from childhood who grow to love them. What Shalvis handles better than many authors is the conversational gamut that builds their relationship from the give and take, the respect, and the clumsy well-intentioned gaffs that must be overcome. Along the way each chooses to build a family and a future together with all the flawed challenges that families bring. Heartwarming and intelligent portrayals of interesting characters.

What a start to a book! "It wasn't often that Levi Cutler came within a hair's width of dying" With an opening line like this, who can stop reading? The whole first chapter was like an action movie while we wait to see what will happen to Levi on the Gondola. As someone afraid of heights, I was on the edge of my seat reading with one eye shut. the lake Tahoe setting is just beautiful and I really enjoyed the characters. Levi and Jane's story is one of self discovery and giving ourselves grace. I loved their journey to each other as well as getting to know the other family, friends and friends who become family in their lives. I was thrilled to discover this is the first book in the Sunset Cove Series so I look forward to additional books in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Email: DaniReadsTooMuch@comcast.net
https://www.instagram.com/dani.reads.too.much/
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4725184-daniela-arena

Let me start by saying it’s been a hot minute since I read a JS book. I’ve been all about murder & mayhem. That being said.

No one does witty banter like her. She is the queen of flirty, fun romance. I literally find myself laughing out loud and slapping my knee when I read her books. It has it all. And perhaps it is predictable. But I do not care. I love the stories. And it was exactly what I needed today.

When in a life-threatening situation with a stranger, Levi Cutler makes what he assumes is a final call to his mother. Instead of saying his goodbyes, he tells her what she most wants to hear: that he has a woman in his life and is happy and settled. When the worst doesn’t happen, naturally his family is desperate to meet the woman who has captured Levi’s heart.

Jane is hesitant to pose as Levi’s girlfriend, but when he returns the locket that she’d thought was lost to her forever, a precious reminder of her beloved grandmother, she feels led to help. When one “pretend” date - just to get to know one another, of course – leads to another, Jane finds herself feeling more and more drawn to Levi. But Jane doesn’t do relationships, she doesn’t get close, and she doesn’t put down roots. After a childhood of being shuffled from one relative to another, feeling unwanted and unloved, Jane keeps everyone at arm’s length. Her ever-present fear of rejection equates to a solitary life and a strong determination to keep it that way.

It was easy to be quickly drawn into The Family You Make. From the first scene where Levi and Jane are thrown together in a terrifying situation, to getting to know the likable cast of characters, I fell right into the lives of Levi and Jane and pulled for them to overcome their obstacles. Jane’s reticence was understandable and Shalvis did a wonderful job in revealing the small cracks in Jane’s resolve as she began to open herself up to Levi and those around her. I loved seeing Jane take those small steps in forming lasting connections. I was surprised at the emotional depth Shalvis created and found myself teary-eyed several times, especially scenes between Jane and her estranged grandfather.

The Family You Make was a heartwarming story of family, both biological and chosen. I’m already looking forward to another visit to Sunrise Cove and the characters I came to care so much about.

Jane is a travel nurse. She is currently working at a ski resort. She is leaving work one day when a storm comes up and traps her and one other person, Levi, in the gondola. This is quite a dangerous situation. So, due to the dire circumstances, Levi ends up lying to his mother. He tells her he found “the one”. Since these two survive this horror in the gondola…It looks like Jane now has to pretend for Levi’s family.

I loved both of these characters, Jane and Levi. And I especially loved how they met. The gondola scene is one of my favorites out of the whole book. It just set the tone for their whole relationship.

If you follow my reviews at all, you know I love Jill Shalvis. She has quickly become one of my favorite rom com authors. This book is an excellent example of this genre with snarky comments and fantastic characters with super chemistry.

Need a wonderful romance which will have you laughing and grinning and just plain enjoying yourself….THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today!

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

I picked up this book solely because of the setting. I wanted a winter read that wasn’t Christmas. (I never get snow, so sometimes I have to live it through books.) The Lake Tahoe setting gave me just the fix I was looking for, but the characters ended up being the highlight of the book. We get not just 1 romance, but two, and an absolutely delightful cast of side characters in a family.

Right on the first page of The Family You Make Jill Shalvis engages us with action. Serious action as two people face that they might not come out of a dangerous situation alive.

Levi and Jane meet in a scary gondola, buffeted by a storm. Well obviously they do come out of it but one thing leads to another and this pair are falling for each other, in spite of what they both espouse. Jane never stops long in one place, her family history is one of what she experiences as rejection. Levi does have a warm hearted family, but he too has escaped as he was that bit different and felt he wasn't understood.

As well we have Charlotte and Mateo, two doctors who work at the local hospital. Both fantastic people who are finding their way to each other. Charlotte is working at letting Jane know she has a home with her. At the moment Jane sees herself as a guest renter, but Charlotte is showing her otherwise. Part of the book's appeal is the journey that Jane makes from "no family" to plenty of "found family".  Charlotte herself has a past history that makes her hold back with Mateo, and so she too has a journey to make.

There is plenty of romance, delightful characters, a quirky family and a Cat that knows its place. A book for those who like an engaging read with these kinds of ingredients.

What happens when you have a near-death experience with a stranger? In Levi and Jane's case: fall in love against all odds. Jane was allergic to relationships because of her past, and Levi slips into her life and makes a gash in her existence. I loved this story with all the wonderful characters! Mateo and Charlotte also get a HEA!!