The One You Can’t Forget

Even better than the first in this series (The Ones Who Got Away), this bittersweet contemporary romance delves more sensitively into the adult lives of survivors of a high school prom massacre. Austin, Tex., divorce attorney Rebecca Lindt always wears pantsuits to conceal the scars on her leg from the bullet she took 12 years ago, and there are other, emotional, scars that she likewise keeps hidden. Those reappear all too easily the night she’s mugged at gunpoint. Luckily, a stray dog and Wes Garrett, a former chef turned cooking teacher, come to her rescue. There are immediate sparks, but as soon as Rebecca and Wes realize where they’d met before, their romantic future looks bleak: Rebecca is the lawyer who helped Wes’s ex-wife fleece him of all but the shirt on his back. They have a lot to overcome, individually and together, but Loren capably turns this seeming recipe for disaster into a delicious happy ending. Readers will be ever more impressed by how Loren thoughtfully and compassionately approaches trauma recovery. Agent: Sara Megibow, KT Literary. (June)