Roni Loren brings her emotional The Ones Who Got Away series to a close with The One for You, a rollercoaster friends-to-lovers romance between two childhood best friends whose lives were forever changed by a traumatic event.

Kincaid Breslin and Ashton Isaacs were best friends until their prom night turned to tragedy when Graham, Kincaid’s boyfriend and Ashton’s friend, was killed in a school shooting. Consumed by their shared grief, Kincaid and Ash shared a single night together, a mistake that fractured their relationship for years. Over a decade later, they are unexpectedly reunited in their hometown, haunted by memories of that night.

In the years since, Ash moved away and became a successful author. Kincaid stayed in her hometown, putting on a brave face as she pursued a career in real estate. When Graham’s parents begin planning to sell their much-loved bookstore, both Kincaid and Ash find themselves fighting for the same cause with a metric ton of baggage waiting to be addressed.

Ash and Kincaid’s road to romance is fraught with tension, unaddressed feelings and PTSD. The story switches between past and present, showing readers how the attack created a fragmented before and after for the survivors. Loren ably handles every emotional, heartbreaking layer of The One for You. Ash and Kincaid have built walls upon walls around themselves to avoid addressing their trauma and the guilt they feel for sleeping together while in mourning. Kincaid is a woman who denies her own fragility in the most heartbreaking ways, a master of plastering on a smile, denying herself chances to grieve. Meanwhile, Ash adopts the persona of an affable nerd, and his world travels make it easier for him to forget the terrible events of his past. Reunited by the memory of Graham and wanting to help out his parents, they quickly hand-wave away their years of silence. But as the time they spend together becomes more frequent, simply ignoring what happened between them, as well as the death of Graham, becomes unavoidable.

There is truly something special about Loren’s writing and the way she handles the all-too-real realities of gun violence. Devoted fans of the series will find this finale bittersweet; it packs an emotional punch with a hard-won happy ending, but the realization that there are no more books for us to enjoy is a hard pill to swallow. Though Loren most likely has something fantastic on the horizon, The One for You and its predecessors aren’t romances readers will soon forget. Loren has easily created one of the most memorable contemporary romance series of the last decade.

Lyssa Kay Adams hits a home run with The Bromance Book Club, a contemporary romance about a husband and wife who learn to reconnect using the power of romance novels.

Due to an unexpected pregnancy and their subsequent marriage, Gavin and Thea Scott never had a chance to enjoy being newlyweds. After each lackluster intimate encounter between them, it becomes clear to Thea that something needs to change. At home with twin toddlers and a husband whose MLB career took off like a rocket, Thea very much feels like a single mom. When Gavin is home, he’s a man she doesn’t really recognize. When she brings up divorce, Gavin realizes he’s had his head in the sand for too long. He’s determined to save his marriage and make Thea feel loved and appreciated.

Enter the Bromance Book Club, a romance book club made up of Gavin’s fellow athletes who see romance novels as a way of understanding and improving their communication with women. The setup may seem farfetched, but it’s too charming to resist. The men think their current book club pick, Courting the Countess, may hold the secret to Gavin and Thea getting their groove back.

Readers who enjoy a heartfelt second-chance romance, especially between a married couple, should get their hands on this book immediately. There’s nothing wrong with beautiful, single and unattached twenty-somethings finding love, but the added stress of running a household with troublesome twins fully and truly embodies the romantic complacency that can happen in long term relationships. A first love is a beautiful thing, but how do we make that love last when life dishes out so many curveballs?

Adams creates a cringe-worthy look at modern romance with Gavin being too busy and Thea being too exhausted to do more than just go through the motions. It feels a little too real in the best way possible. Gavin is a likable hero whose cluelessness gets called out by not only his wife, but by his fellow book club bros too. There are some wonderful scenes of introspection as the men break down romantic scenes in romance like “the grovel” or “the big misunderstanding,” comparing where they’ve messed up in life and how romance can teach them to be better communicators. And as Thea regains control of her life and finds her voice, her arc becomes a wonderful and empowering lesson that it’s never too late to change course and make adjustments for the sake of your own happiness.

The Bromance Book Club is truly a novel for dedicated romance fans. Readers will be delighted at all of the meta winks and nudges to the genre we love so much. I can’t wait to see what the Bromance Book Club will read next and how it’ll help shape their next happily ever after.

Boy meets girl. Boy woos girl. Boy wins girl. Boy . . . sells girl out, and then flees the country, never to see her again—until 14 years later, when their paths cross once more.

Twice in a Blue Moon starts off simply enough: small-town California girl Tate Jones visits London with her grandmother. Vermont farm boy Sam Brandis is in London with his grandfather, and in a meet-cute lovingly borrowed from E.M. Forster and an acclaimed Merchant Ivory film adaptation, the pairs swap rooms so the ladies can have “a room with a view.” The view includes the hotel’s garden, where Tate and Sam meet nightly to stargaze and flirt, and to share their dreams and secrets.

Tate’s secret is a doozy. She’s the daughter of Ian Butler, the world’s most idolized actor. As a little girl, her red carpet images were recognized around the world. But when she was 8, her mother—heartsick about her husband’s blatant, unrelenting infidelity—took Tate and left the spotlight behind. Back in her tiny hometown, they buried their pasts, adopting the last name Jones. Only a handful of people know Tate’s true identity, and Tate shares it with Sam with all the overflowing trust of a girl in love for the very first time. But when she steps out of the hotel to find a waiting mob of paparazzi—tipped off by a well-paid “trusted confidante”—she gets her first broken heart, and resolves to be more careful about ever loving again.

Fast-forward 14 years. Tate, having used that unwanted reveal to launch an acting career, is about to start filming a role that could push her onto the A-list. The pressure has doubled, since a supporting role will be filled by her superficially doting, micro-aggressive father. Worst of all, she’s totally blindsided to show up on location and meet the screenwriter: Sam Brandis, writing under the pen name S.B. Hill. Pulling it together to give the screen performance of a lifetime will be hard enough, but when the cameras stop rolling and she has to write her own life’s dialogue, Tate grapples to find answers, inner strength and possibly forgiveness.

The best-friend writing team known as Christina Lauren never fails to delight. Twice in a Blue Moon is funny and engaging, whether Tate is bantering with her badass bestie, or navigating an awkward love scene with her adorable co-star. It also rings true on the low notes. Tate’s genuine heartbreak over her secret’s exposure comes both from being betrayed by Sam, and her personal sense of having betrayed her mother and grandmother’s trust. Her lack of faith in her own judgment—and in men, in general—requires Tate to reach deep to find the strength and conviction she thinks she lacks. It's a strikingly poignant note, and makes her journey toward trusting herself, and determining who else is worthy of her trust, all the more meaningful.

Some—including me—might quibble that Tate gives her trust back to Sam a little too quickly. (I’m the Old Testament type who thinks betraying men should get struck with lightning bolts from on high—preferably aimed at their crotches.) But it’s hard to argue with a character who has fought this hard to figure out what she wants, and who finally finds the courage to go and get it.