The Ones Who Got Away

by Roni Loren

[Rowena]

I’ve been pretty anxious to read this book ever since I read the blurb. What an interesting concept for a series and I’m totally glad to report that Roni Loren did a fantastic job setting this series up. This was my first book read by Loren and it won’t be my last.

Liv Arias and Finn Dorsey are two students that survived a school shooting and they’re back in the town to take part in a charity documentary that will benefit the families of the victims. It’s not going to be an easy thing to be back at the scene of the crime but for charity, they’ll go back. For any of the survivors, it would be hard to go back to the scene of the crime but for both Liv and Finn, their memories seriously broke my heart.

They were high school sweethearts. They were in love but Liv’s father was Finn’s father’s gardener and because of that, they kept their love a secret. Finn broke Liv’s heart when he asked Rebecca Lindt to prom because he wasn’t strong enough to love Liv out in the open and then he stomped on her heart in the janitor’s closet at prom when the shooting started and he left her in the closet to go and save Bec, leading the shooters right to Liv.

Talk about some angsty romance drama, right? Holy cow, the more I read into this story, the more my heart hurt for Liv but then there was Finn. Finn carries a lot of guilt over everything and seeing Liv again is stirring up the guilt all over again but the connection they had in high school is still alive and beating between them now so how do they move on from the memories? Where do they go from here?

I really enjoyed the romance between Finn and Liv. I thought they handled their coming together again really well. There was so much between them and seeing them struggle to find common ground after all of these years was heartbreaking but boy was I rooting them on. I don’t know that I would have been as forgiving as Liv was but who knows, when you love someone the way that Liv loved Finn, maybe I would.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was that Roni Loren didn’t shy away from making Finn own up to what he did back in high school. I’m glad that he really struggled with his actions back then and how that shaped him into the man that he was now. I liked that Loren made him work for his happy ending. I liked that Liv had to forgive him and they had to work through their past to get to their future.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this book and even more to look forward to. It was so nice to meet some of the other survivors and I liked Liv’s friends. I’m looking forward to more Kincaid, Rebecca and Taryn in future books. I will definitely be back for more so yes, I recommend this book to anyone in the mood for an emotional read about two survivors who find their way back to each other.

Grade: 4 out of 5