The One You Can’t Forget
Author: Roni Loren
Reviewer: Nima
Rating: A
What I’m Talking About:
The One You Can’t Forget by Roni Loren is the second book in The Ones Who Got Away series following a few of the survivors of a Columbine-type school shooting at the imaginary Lone Acre High School. The One You Can’t Forget reintroduces us to Lone Acre survivor Attorney Rebecca Lindt and new character chef Wes Garrett, who should not like each other or even have the interaction they do. They have legit, real world reasons to stay away from each other—but then there would be no story. A mugging brings Wes and Rebecca together for the second time years after their first encounter so they don’t immediately recognize each other. When they do recognize each other, they have the choice to work off of past impressions or their present experiences.
Sometimes stress and chemistry can get you the benefit of the doubt, but what you do with it, is work. This isn’t just a story of opposites attract, that’s too easy. I love that Loren doesn’t go down the easy route of insta-love or even jumping on an imaginary “third date rule” to let her characters act on their chemistry. Instead she lets them get to know each other, choosing over and over to create a new relationship, to have phone conversations, and brilliantly, they share a major project together. They work together. Through this project, they are able to take their relationship from light and superficial to meaningful and substantial.
They need that trust because the fallout from the mugging presents a situation that we can see miles off. There is no hinting or foreshadowing; any intelligent reader will see it coming. Loren was so successful in getting me to like her characters, however, that instead of being tense over a plot point, I was tense wondering how they were going to handle it, how it would affect their new relationship. Loren handled it plausibly. Thank you. The story is tied up with a tidy bow in the epilogue and we have a hint to the third installment.
There are character tie-in’s to the first book which introduced the series, but The One You Can’t Forget is solidly a stand-alone book if you missed the first one. The reader isn’t left feeling like there’s large amounts of pertinent background information or gaps to try and fill-in on their own. I’m looking forward to book three.
My Rating: A, Loved It
About the Book:
Most days Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter…
The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression would crumble if people knew her secret. She didn’t deserve to be the one who got away. But nothing can change the past, so she’s thrown herself into her work. She can’t dwell if she never slows down.
Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging and saves Rebecca―the attorney who helped his ex ruin him―his simple life gets complicated.
Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than a fling. But when Rebecca’s secret is put at risk, both discover they could lose everything, including what they never realized they needed: each other
Release Date: June 5, 2018
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Series: The Ones Who Got Away #2
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format(s): paperback (416 pages), e-book
Book Source: Publisher/NetGalley
Purchase Info:
Amazon