The Family You Make
A Novel
by Jill Shalvis
Readers who enjoy an involving story with characters that have some complexity should give this women’s fiction title a look. I very much enjoyed it.
Ms. Shalvis drew this reader in immediately. The first chapter of the book evoked strong feelings in me. Levi and Jane are stuck in a gondola (way high up) during a major weather event. I was almost literally trembling for them even though I knew that an author would not kill her main characters at the beginning of a novel. Still, I felt the cold, the shaking of the car, the fear of death and the relief when feet were again on the ground (just where I like mine to be!)
From this opening the author goes on to create a story with people about whom I cared. A few of them are:
Jane: She had a difficult childhood. Jane now works as a traveling nurse, never staying too long in any one place and, up until now, avoiding romantic attachments.
Levi: As a good male protagonist, he is nice looking and smart but he is dealing with a past grief. It is he and Jane who are trapped in the air together.
Charlotte: She is the one person to whom Jane has let herself become close. However, Charlotte has her own backstory with its repercussions in her current life.
Mateo: He knows all three of the others. Mateo is an ER doctor, so knows Charlotte, a surgeon at the same hospital. He and Levi were best friends for many years. Levi also knows Jane who lives with Charlotte and is a nurse in the same community for part of the year.
Watching how these people find their ways makes for a warmly involving read. This is the second novel that I have read by Ms. Shalvis and it will not be my last.
From the Publisher
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own
Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series is up to its ninth book. I have been reading about Ruth from the very first novel and have fallen in love with this bright, flawed, human and quirky scholar of bones and archaeology. Each book gives the reader a chance to catch up with Cathbad, a Druid; Nelson, a DCI and his wife Michelle, along with Judy, Clough, Kate and many others in the academic, police and local world of Norfolk. The books are best read in order for full enjoyment. Start with The Crossing Places and come up for air after you spend time underground in the latest, The Chalk Pit. A favorite series of mine!
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I wanted to read this novel from the moment that I heard about it. It turns out that it was a very good, but not absolutely amazing, read.
