cover image Then There Was You

Then There Was You

Miranda Liasson. Forever, $6.99 mass market (368p) ISBN 978-1-4555-4180-5

Liasson (The Baby Project) ably tugs at the heartstrings with this poignant contemporary about a jilted doctor and the police chief who’d like to make it all better. Dr. Serafina “Sara” Langdon was dumped by her fiancé, Tagg, days before their planned wedding. A year later, she reluctantly returns to her tiny hometown of Angel Falls, Ohio, to help her family care for her Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother. On one of her first days in the Angel Falls ER, she treats Colton Walker, her teen-years nemesis; she snubs him, believing he’s the one who booked Tagg’s high school crush as the bachelor party entertainment, which led to Tagg jilting Sara in favor of the dancer. Colton, once a smart-aleck teenager, is now Angel Falls’ chief of police. He’s morphed into the strong and dependable type—and he’s long nurtured a crush on Sara. The two slowly start to connect, but, when Tagg comes back to town, his intervention may end their budding relationship. Liasson shifts nicely between the serious topic of Alzheimer’s and the lighter moments (including a near-disaster of a proposal), aided by a strong cast of supporting characters, who presumably will be getting their own books next. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (June)