Bethany Monaco Smith

Bethany Monaco Smith writes emotionally focused contemporary romance about friendship, family strain, recovery, and lasting attachment. Real Love is the second novel in her Freaking Love series, following First Love and leading into Forever Love. The story returns to Maia, Braden, Harper, Nick, and Leigh after Braden's departure disrupts both a young family and a close friendship. Its alternating relationship threads explore single parenthood, abandonment, loyalty, and the uneasy difference between first love and a partnership that can survive change. Smith describes the completed trilogy as a coming-of-age romantic drama centered on Maia, her friends, and her extended family, so Real Love functions as the difficult middle movement rather than a standalone resolution. Her broader catalogue includes the Friends Like This, Baker Girls, Lacy Creek, and Ida Romance series, ranging from high-emotion drama to lighter small-town romantic comedy. Across those connected settings, recurring characters allow one couple's choices to reshape later stories instead of disappearing after an ending.