In Beth O’Leary’s The Road Trip, the path to hell (and happy ever after) is paved with exes and their besties.

Fittingly, their journey begins with a literal bang. Two cars collide on their way from southern England to Scotland for the wedding of a mutual friend. The bigger car is totaled, and the two vehicles' combined five people squeeze into a tiny Mini Cooper for a discomfiting 400-mile journey with plenty of baggage in tow. The resulting carpool includes Addie and Dylan, estranged former live-in lovers who met and fell hard at an idyllic villa in France; their respective best friends, Deb (Addie’s sister) and Marcus (Dylan’s appallingly awful best friend); plus the bride's mysterious wild-card co-worker.

O’Leary is a brilliant social observer and a fearless, diabolical plotter. She arranges nuances of character, class, personality and situation for maximum chaos, placing the estranged exes in forced proximity for two painful days with Marcus, the guy who pushed them apart. Dylan is an Oxford grad and a poet from a posh, aristocratic family with flagging generational wealth; Addie is a working-class girl from Chichester who now works as a schoolteacher; and Marcus, the serpent in their garden, is a reckless, dissolute lost boy.

When they met, Dylan was a guest in the French villa where Addie was working as a caretaker for the summer. Unfortunately, Addie also became the primary caretaker of her ensuing relationship with Dylan. The majority of the book alternates between the titular road trip from hell and flashbacks that highlight the origins of their dysfunction: Marcus' frequent interference, Dylan’s passivity and Addie’s mounting frustration and insecurity.

This book's cover is deceptive, as The Road Trip is neither a romp nor a rom com. It’s an intense romance with a wildly wicked sense of humor—Sarah MacLean’s epic The Day of the Duchess meets Dangerous Liaisons in contemporary casual weekend dress. O’Leary unpacks the love story from multiple perspectives—the relationship then and now, from both main characters’ points of view—as she explores how it grew, how it faltered and what it feels like to come together after two years apart. Providing an intimate view of all the emotional turmoil that entails, this brutal but addictive second-chance romance is the relational equivalent of a 365-degree tour of a five-car pileup.

Throughout the book, Marcus’ displays of dominance demean Dylan and Addie both, and Dylan barely pushes back. It may be hard for some readers to keep faith with a character who is so passive for so long. Still, O’Leary’s humor, insight and occasionally bonkers plot twists command attention all the way through, and the ending is miraculously, gloriously redeeming. The Road Trip is a romantic rollercoaster that you won’t be able to turn away from till it’s done.

Emily Houghton’s Before I Saw You is a tender, emotional debut about pain, recovery and the support people find in unexpected places. This tear-jerking slow-burn romance follows two patients in a long-term care ward as they recover from serious injuries.

Alice and Alfie share a room at St. Francis’ Hospital. Alice is an overworked introvert healing from significant burns after a fire in her building. Alfie is an incurable extrovert who survived a deadly car accident but needed to have his leg amputated. They’re very much opposites. Alfie is quite the chatterbox, determined to bring a smile to everyone’s face, and Alice barely speaks and keeps the curtains closed around her bed. After relying solely on herself from a too early age, the thought of depending on someone else for anything causes Alice to shrink further into herself.

At first, their relationship is built on Alfie talking and Alice just listening. While his incessant chattering annoys Alice at the beginning, she quickly grows accustomed to hearing his voice and eventually finds it a source of comfort. Alfie and Alice both suffered other traumas before their respective injuries, and a long-term hospital stay could be the catalyst for finally addressing those events. After all, there is little else to do when you’re mostly confined to a hospital room.

An action-oriented romance this is not. But it's a perfect read for someone who prefers getting to know the main characters and watching their relationship grow via those tiny, seemingly inconsequential moments. Alice and Alfie’s journey from strangers to friends to more is torturous in the best way possible. Their relationship unfolds slowly, teasingly. The first time they touch hands is momentous and feels incredibly raw because of how much tension and anticipation Houghton has built up to that point.

There are dark moments as Alfie and Alice come to terms with their own baggage, and as the reader discovers more about the circumstances that led them to the hospital. Before I Saw You should come packaged with tissues because crying is inevitable. However, Houghton sneaks in bits of levity from the larger cast of characters, from Alfie’s doting parents to the empathetic staff. It’s a great, balanced approach that also extends to the affable Alfie. Though his kindness and charming personality are genuine, he wields them as a shield to distract himself from thinking too deeply about how his life will change once he leaves St. Francis.

Don't be turned off by the promise of an ugly sob or two. Houghton makes the tough times worth it, such as when Alice speaks her first words to Alfie or when she finally shifts aside her curtain and reaches out her hand. One of the beauties of romance is how it shows the bright spots amid tough times, and Before I Saw You is a testament to why readers find this genre to be hopeful above all else.

Rosie Danan returns with The Intimacy Experiment, a steamy contemporary romance that is every bit as enjoyable as her debut, The Roommate. It’s a triumph of feminist fiction, supporting the importance of healthy emotional and physical intimacy and showing how to make the world a better place with love.

Startup executive Naomi Grant thinks of herself as something of a superhero. She’s a former porn star who left behind her previous name and identity to build an enormous platform and take-no-prisoners public image, which she has used to transition into a career as a sex educator. But given the cultural stigma surrounding sex work, she isn’t welcome in the lecture circuit or in higher education.

She’s the perfect foil to Rabbi Ethan Cohen, one of the city’s hottest bachelors, who’s been tasked with attracting a younger generation to the faith. His own background is somewhat nontraditional, in that he was a career academic before devoting his life to his faith.

Faced with budget woes and low participation, Ethan decides to pursue a controversial initiative with Naomi by asking her to co-host a seminar series on modern intimacy. Rather than judging her former career as a sex worker, he focuses on her intelligence and the successful company and message she’s created. Not only does he acknowledge the brain behind Naomi's beauty, he also understands that the things she’s talking about are important to the millennial generation his congregation needs to survive.

The Intimacy Experiment is sexy and modern and fun, but also thoughtful and authentic. Danan avoids tired stereotypes: Ethan isn’t the least bit squeamish about sex, and Naomi is vulnerable and open when considering their budding romance. There’s a lot at stake for both of these flawed, richly layered characters. For them to love each other, openly and without reserve, is a risk to their professional reputations. And even without all of that, it takes a brave person to tell another, “I think I could be good at loving you,” and mean it. It takes a brave person to believe they’re worthy of that love. Danan crafts a beautiful arc as Naomi learns to stand in the real world and let her true self shine through, reconciling both her “superhero” and “secret” identities, and trusting that Ethan will love all of who she is.

There’s no place like home. Which might be the problem with Dr. Will Sterling. While reading Kate Clayborn’s Love at First, you get the sense that he’s never actually had anything that fits that title. As a child, he had a house that he lived in with parents who were obsessed with each other and largely indifferent to him. As an adult, he has an apartment that he barely sees in between long hospital shifts. There’s no one he’d consider family. There’s barely anyone he’d consider a friend. He works overtime in the hospital’s emergency room until his co-workers basically kick him out, not realizing that he doesn’t actually have anywhere better to go. And then, suddenly, he has a new . . . well, let’s call it a residence. An inherited apartment from his recently deceased estranged uncle that he’s very, very eager to get rid of but can’t, thanks to the terms of the uncle’s will. And with the apartment comes an added, unspoken inheritance in the form of the colorful neighbors that fill out the small, six-unit apartment building.

Eleanora Clarke—better known as Nora—might be the youngest resident (by far) in the crotchety, close-knit community, but she’s also its fiercest and most determined protector. Her own isolated childhood led her to treasure the place and the memories it holds of her beloved grandmother. When Will shows up with his smile and his charm and his decision to—horror of horrors!—renovate his inheritance and turn it into a short-term rental, she springs into action to combat him. The conflict is immediate, but if you’re expecting typical rom-com over-the-top exploits, then you’d be wrong. Sure, Nora pulls a couple of fast ones to try to get around Will, but then something far sweeter than hijinks ensues.

There’s a lovely, expansive hopefulness to Clayborn’s romance. Pretty much none of its characters have the life they’d imagined for themselves or the one they would have chosen. Everyone, not just the main couple, has experienced their share of grief, from the 80-year-old Lothario on the third floor (he’s very into dating apps) to Will’s direct supervisor at the hospital, a man who might be the most awkwardly endearing boss you hope to never have since Michael Scott from “The Office." But as all of them come together in a variety of ways—involving poetry, lost kittens, towel rods and really good marinara sauce—a sense of beautiful optimism shines through Clayborn’s prose. Love at First will not only make you believe that you can recover from the pain in your past but that you can, if and when you choose, break away from your past entirely and build a new future, surrounded by love and support. Rather than narrowly focus on its main couple, Love at First overflows with a sense of connection and community. While watching Will and Nora fall deeply, endearingly in love, you’ll also fall in love with the world they live in, the community they build and the future they have to look forward to together.

In Christina Britton’s solidly crafted Regency romance, Someday My Duke Will Come, a fake engagement and close quarters spur friends to become the lovers they were meant to be. Quincy and Clara are two of a kind. Both are aristocratic underdogs: despite being the children of dukes, they grew up on the periphery of the noble circles to which they belong. And both harbor dark secrets and not quite fully healed childhood wounds that they think make them less than ideal partners. Plus, for different reasons, they’re both desperate to avoid the matchmaking machinations of nosy relatives.

Quincy is the brand new Duke of Reigate. As a boy, he revered and loved his father and was loved and adored in turn. But his mother always seemed to despise him, and he never understood why he felt so at odds with almost everyone in his family. At 14, with his father gone, he ran off to prevent his mother from consigning him to the Royal Navy. Having grown up as fourth in line to the dukedom, Quincy never thought he’d inherit. When he returns home for the first time in 14 years, he learns to never say never. Due to a series of unfortunate events, he’s the new Duke of Reigate and there’s no money left in the estate.

Lady Clara’s family is far warmer, but she’s a spinster and feels pressured by her Aunt Olivia to finally make a match lest she be permanently left on the shelf (unbeknownst to Aunt Olivia, this is Clara’s preferred life plan). Clara was just 9 years old when her mother died, and she all but traded her childhood to make sure her siblings, a younger brother and sister, felt secure. From then on, she watched them play and stood on the sidelines, more caretaker than sister to them both. Later, at 16, she went through a short rebellious period that ended in tragedy, plunging her into despair and making her believe that her past disqualified her from marrying the type of man that would otherwise be her match.

When an upcoming family wedding throws Lady Clara and the new Duke together, they both find themselves in need of a fake partner, and renew a warm friendship formed in Britton’s first Isle of Synne novel, A Good Duke Is Hard to Find. Quincy is warding off his mother’s ill-tempered demands that he marry to refill the coffers. As determined and disapproving as Lady Catherine de Bourgh scheming over Fitzwilliam Darcy’s future in Pride and Prejudice, the Duchess of Reigate has an intended wife picked out for the prodigal son she barely acknowledges—and it is not Lady Clara, his own desires be damned. The rather two-dimensional duchess is pushy and vicious, and her purpose is solely to act as the villain that propels the action forward, but it mostly works. When she ambushes Quincy with the match she’s chosen for him, Clara steps in as his fake fiancée, a claim that also conveniently wards off her aunt’s more generous but annoying matchmaking entreaties. More importantly, it throws them in close proximity even though they’d both sort of like to avoid the attraction they feel but haven’t acknowledged.

In addition to the fake engagement, the events of Someday My Duke Will Come revolve around Quincy’s bankrupt dukedom that needs saving and family secrets that need unraveling. Over the course of their arrangement, Clara and Quincy learn that the things they survived make them perfect partners for each other. This is a solid if not wholly original Regency romance between two likable underdogs who both deserve a happy ending.