“Phenomenal. Gets my highest recommendation!” —LORELEI JAMES, New York Times and USA Today bestselling authorIt’s been twelve years since tragedy struck the senior class of Long Acre High School. Only a few students survived that fateful night—a group the media dubbed The Ones Who Got Away.Liv Arias thought she’d never return to Long Acre—until a documentary brings her and the other survivors … a documentary brings her and the other survivors back home. Suddenly her old flame, Finn Dorsey, is closer than ever, and their attraction is still white-hot. When a searing kiss reignites their passion, Liv realizes this rough-around-the-edges cop might be exactly what she needs…
Liv’s words cut off as Finn got closer. The man approaching was nothing like the boy she’d known. The bulky football muscles had streamlined into a harder, leaner package and the look in his deep green eyes held no trace of boyish innocence.
The Ones Who Got Away series:
The Ones Who Got Away (Book 1)
The One You Can’t Forget (Book 2)
The One You Fight For (Book 3)
Readers are Raving About Roni Loren’s The Ones Who Got Away:
“Unforgettable… Roni Loren at her best!” —KRISTEN CALLIHAN, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Game On series
“Unique, swoony, and lively. The Ones Who Got Away is the best kind of second-chance romance!” —SARINA BOWEN, USA Today bestselling author of Stay
“The Ones Who Got Away is EXACTLY what I love in romance; angsty, hot, conflicted, funny! Roni Loren delivers on all of it! Don’t let this book get away!”—M. O’Keefe, USA Today bestselling author of Baby, Come Back
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I loved this series starter about a group of high school shooting survivors. Yes, that’s a pretty dark background for a romance series, but Roni Loren pulls it off with Olivia and Finn. Roni’s writing is evocative and poignant–not to mention sizzling–and I enjoyed the relationships between the four different women who likely wouldn’t have been friends if not for their shared experience. Looking forward to reading more in this series from a talented author who knows how to deliver a solid read.
The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren is the first book of Ms. Loren’s new series. A love story about two survivors who meet years later and find healing as the sparks fly. Olivia “Liv” Arias returns to her hometown of Long Acre, Texas to film a documentary about the shooting at her senior prom twelve years ago. As she sees the other survivors, there is one she wasn’t expecting to see. Finn Dorsey was her secret high school boyfriend who was the hero of that night. The moment their eyes met, she realized that the old feelings were still burning bright. As the two fight their attraction and deal with their old haunts and memories of that horrific night, they realize that healing only comes from within. Will they continue to fight their attraction? Will they let the memories of the shooting continue to keep them apart?
The Ones Who Got Away is a beautiful story about redemption, healing and moving forward. With the added bonus of a sizzling love story which will take your breath away. I won a copy from the publisher through Bookishfirst.com and I eagerly waited and waited for this book to arrive. And it was worth the wait. I enjoyed every character. I highly recommend The Ones Who Got Away. If you enjoy a great, emotional story with a wonderful love story, you will enjoy this book.
The Ones Who Got Away is available in paperback and eBook
I loved this book and the entire series. It gave me all the feels. The storyline takes place twelve years after a high school shooting where some of the characters were survivors of. It was intense and the love scenes were steamy.
”They were the ones that got away, only to be chased for years after. By the memories. By the anger.”
It makes me sound like a complete psycho path to say this, but surviving a school shooting made for a unique back drop for a romance novel. I loved the emotion. The PTSD was touched on, but not exaggerated.
I cannot wait to continue on with the series.
Roni Loren is one of my favorite authors, because she hits the perfect sweet spot between angst, and steam, and plot. I love this series and went to the trouble to buy them in paperback so I could have them on my writer’s reference shelf. I’m just a total fangirl when it comes to her work, and I study her plotting and pacing especially. A great read, and a great premise on which to base a series. Fresh and original and relevant.
Twelve years after a high school shooting, the survivors reunite for a documentary. Olivia Arias never thought she would return to Long Acre and the painful memories it holds, but she can’t say no to a documentary for charity. Reuniting with her old flame, Finn Dorsey, she finds that she is even more attracted to him now than she was then. Together they help each other through their fears, and reignite their love, but will it last.
I enjoyed this book. I can see why so many people rave about this book (and series). The writing was great, the romance was beautiful and filled with emotion. This was my first Roni Loren book but it definitely won’t be my last. I will be reading the rest of this series and looking into her other books.
The characters in this book were so good, and I don’t just mean Liv and Finn. The other survivors were so real and unique I just can’t wait to learn more about them and their struggles. Liv has used various ways to cope with her past, including working herself to death. I really liked her. She takes the words of her letter to heart and tries to embrace life and passion again. It is something that more people should do. Finn uses his job as an undercover agent to get over his past and try to stop it from happening to others. Together these two find comfort and peace with each other that has been missing since the shooting.
I can’t wait to find out what happens with the other survivors.
Reader Safety:
-School shooting – discussed and flashbacks
-Hero and Heroine with PTSD
What an amazingly original concept for a romance. And those steamy scenes… woof!
I started this series actually with book 4 and love it so much that I’m going back and reading the rest of the stories.
This series tackles a tough subject. It’s about 4 women who survived a school shooting in a small town in Texas. So at times, the books can be heavy. It’s 12 years later and there is a documentary being shot about the survivors and the effects of the shootings on their lives.
The One Who Got Away is about Olivia and the return on her secret high school boyfriend Finn. Finn now works for the FBI going undercover to help stop gun trafficking, specifically to teens. He’s returned home to decompress from an undercover sting he was in for the past 2 years. Running into Olivia and still having that connection was the last thing he expected. Seeing Finn again woke up a part of herself that she had been running from. But as the two reconnect and become friends again, they come to find that what they had could never be replaced.
A great second chance romance and I am really loving this series. I can’t wait to read the other two books in the series!
After the terrible incident 12 years ago and all the nightmares that followed, these few have returned to be interviewed for a documentary and connect and finally Liv and Finn are face to face again. Life changing decisions bring these two together once more and only their love will keep them together. This was not only heartbreaking but life changing. I cannot wait to find out what is in store for the rest of the group.
This is a series where the main characters are survivors of a school shooting and it’s like 10 years after the fact. This is Finn and Rebecca’s story and their second chance at love. They meet up again accidentally at the same school giving interviews about what happened and sparks go off again. They help each other through their fears and insecurities. So glad they got their HEA.
With an aching heart and hesitant eyes, I read this one super quick, inhaling the tragedy, the romance, the second chances, and the triumphant end of a nightmare for all involved. I became intertwined with their stories, cheered their happiness, watched them stumble, and search for their way back. Liv and Finn were fire and I’m so glad I was able to experience their second chance that set the stage for a series I can’t wait to read more of!!
~~~Erika, Book Haven Book Blog
This book really hit me in the feelings. At times, it was hard to read because of the awful things that had happened in the characters’ pasts, but it was also wonderful and emotional and left me with a killer book hangover.
First of all the cover is what first drew me to the book. I really liked it. Second the description. Then I read the sample…OMG I just finished it and I have to get this book ASAP! I found myself all in while I was reading. It was almost as if I were there with Liv…at the interview, in the bar reading the letters with the girls then on the balcony with my margarita and Finn.
I found this book to be very well written so far and although I just read the sample it has me needing the rest of the story now. Just since I finished reading this I have already messaged my blog partner to tell her about this book!! It has that bit of tragedy along with a light at the end that has you hoping for all good things. I can’t read to read more!
Wow! This was my first Roni Loren book. I don’t always read blurbs, but I’m a sucker for a second chance romance where the main characters have a complicated history, so I went for it. Wow! Such an amazing story! Two people, Olivia and Finn, who went through a tragedy in high school and meet many years later, each still working through the repercussions of the event. There was the typical will-they-won’t-they and it’s-just-temporary, but they had a fresh spin. Ms. Loren writes a really good sexy scene, and the book really moved along. I also enjoyed getting to know the secondary characters, like Rebecca, Taryn and Kincaid, whose stories are hopefully going to be told in future books.
** spoiler alert ** I picked out this book from an online list of 2018’s ‘best romances.’ I don’t read much contemporary romance and wanted to try something new…not only as entertainment for a vacation I was about to take, but as a learning process for my author self. What I could I learn from reading a highly rated romance that could benefit my own writing and plotting?
Ms. Loren grabs your attention from the very first chapters. I was drawn into the story right away: ten years after a school shooting, the survivors are back in town for a ‘reunion’ of sorts. This book is the first one in a series, so each book focuses on a different survivor or survivors and how they move on in their adult lives from tragedy. Very different plot than your typical contemporary romance, so I was intrigued.
Two ‘exes’ run into each other. Their budding high school romance and lives were ripped apart by the shooting. They discover that the attraction is still there. The heroine had changed her name and tried to move on from the bad memories that haunted her by throwing herself into her career; the hero had taken a job in law enforcement in order to seek revenge and put the people who supplied the guns for the massacre behind bars.
The romance was very very hot. If you like borderline erotic romance, this is for you. LOL. There was a definite, palpable attraction between these characters that worked throughout the book. Multiple love scenes of all kinds will make romance readers happy!
The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that I felt the external reasons keeping these two apart wasn’t fully explored. At the beginning, the heroine had terrible PTSD, and I didn’t feel as if I was given a complete journey to follow from that level of fear to where she was at the end of the book. The hero’s reasons for not sticking around were fine, but the way it played out was a little trite compared to the time the author took to build these lovely, believable characters and their pain/fear.
However, since I am not a contemporary romance kinda gal, maybe this is typical for the genre. Either way, it was a satisfying read that ended with a very nice epilogue. I would recommend to readers of contemporary romance who won’t go away disappointed.
Loved The Ones Who Got Away. Steamy, with very engaging characters. I love an angst-ridden hero. One of my personal favs. (I also like to write them.) Tragedy brings them together. Also, a one-who-got-away trope. Love that as well!
I loved this book. Intense, emotional, romantic.
I try not to read excerpts from books when they aren’t releasing for a while but months and months ago I couldn’t stop myself from reading an excerpt from this one, and instantly knew it was going to be fantastic. I only regretted reading the excerpt because I didn’t want to have to wait for the whole story. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait.
The plot of this is what makes it really stand out to me. This is the first book in a series that focuses on the survivors of a high school mass shooting who reunite near the twelve-year anniversary of the tragedy for a news article.
There is a lot of time spent familiarizing readers with the background of this group of characters and I think the use of a second chance romance as the romantic plot point was the best way for Ms. Loren to start the series. Because Liv and Finn already had an established relationship, re-igniting the attraction and those unfinished feelings was the perfect way to progress their relationship in a believable manner while still being able to establish a background for the whole cast of characters.
I knew that the seriousness of what Finn and Liv and been through was going to be heartbreaking and probably cause a few tears and, oh boy, did it ever. But it was the deep, encompassing passion that you could feel between them and that moment where they both had moved on from the past but had to face their futures that really did me in.
This book was everything I hoped it would be, and so much more. I can’t even tell you how awesome it feels to start out the new year with a book that I know will be on my “Best Of” list for 2018.
From the excellent character development, to the fantastic writing that will immerse you right into the tragedy and it’s aftermath, to the anticipation that Ms. Loren creates for the rest of the series, this book hit all of the right notes for me. I anticipate a reread in the near future because I’m simply not ready to walk away from this story yet.
Short version: A school shooting drives apart two survivors for over a decade, but when they’re reunited, they remember all the reasons they started to fall in love.
The plot: I would never, ever have picked up this book if the beginning wasn’t included in the end of a previous book by this author. First, I very rarely read realistic fiction. The real world can be depressing, and nothing makes my mood darken more than all the effing mass shootings going on today. It all makes me sick, so why would I want all that sickness in my reading? I don’t. I want aliens and vampires and magic because I want to escape the real world, but I met Roni at a Dallas Area Romance Author workshop, and I follow her blog, and I’ve been in a few online classes with her (Write Better Faster) and we seem to have similar brains in terms of needing constant input and thinking all the time and working on getting more productive, etc. So, on a whim, I started reading some of her books. That’s how I found myself reading The Ones Who Got Away. I was instantly hooked by the characters and needed to know what happened with them.
So, let’s get to the plot. Twelve years after a school shooting, the survivors are interviewed for a documentary. Liv runs into Finn, who she secretly dated in high school because his parents wouldn’t approve. They were hiding in a closet when the shooting happened, Finn left her to save somebody else, thus revealing her location to the shooters, and she had a gun pointed in her face. She understandably suffers from major PTSD. So does Finn but he found another way to handle it by becoming an FBI agent with the skills to defend himself and others.
Anyway, Liv ends up staying in a guest room of a lake house Finn rents so that she can work on her photography. They fall in love, overcome some lingering issues from the shooting, and get their HEA.
So….great writing, great emotion, etc, but no one’s life was at risk. That’s just kind of a requirement in the (very fictional, unrealistic, never-happen-in-the-real-world books I read). I got REALLY hopeful that Finn would have to save Liv from the Dragonfly gang he’d been undercover with. My brain practically wrote the scene where he realized she was in trouble and he had to rescue her, and she was faced once again with a gun in her face, etc, but it didn’t happen. So… I guess contemporary romance still just isn’t my thing. But if it was my thing, Roni Loren would top my list because she writes HOT and her characters are filled with some much emotion. I envy her ability to write emotion.
The characters: Finn was a high school football player and now is an FBI agent who goes undercover with terrible people. He’s been under cover for two years and is on a break before he starts his next undercover gig.
Liv was kind of the dark goth girl (but didn’t really feel fully goth to me) and she was the daughter of the man who mowed Finn’s family’s yard. They had a forbidden romance because Finn’s dad didn’t approve of Liv. He wanted someone better for his son (his Dad is a COMPLETE asshole). Liv was fine with that.
Liv. I loved how straightforward and real she was. Finn loved that about her too. She knew what she was getting into with her secret romance in high school and she knows she’s going to be hurt from this summer romance with Finn. She’s cool and upfront about that. Smart girl.
But I loved Finn too. They’re a fantastic couple, and honestly, they’re my favorite from all the books I’ve read by Roni Loren (I think this is my fourth book?).
The romance: Romance was hot and steamy with a lot of imagining going on too. I’m pretty sure this is a romance, though, and not the erotic romances I read by her. The characters didn’t sleep together until halfway through the book. In her other books, they would have already gotten it on half a dozen times. lol So, yeah, definitely thinking this is a normal romance. But it was a hot normal romance, so I definitely prefer it over erotic romances.
The writing: The writing disappeared on the page, which in my opinion, is the best type of writing. If writing sticks out to me, whether it’s just plain terrible writing or even really good writing, it pulls me out of the story. So Roni’s writing was perfect for me.
And funny. I’m so jealous of how funny her characters are! I loved the text exchanges and flirting. I wanted to laugh a lot, and that was a good thing since reading a book with the backstory this one has is so depressing.
Some snippets I liked:
* Did he always have to look so good? Maybe he should grow the scraggly recluse beard. For her own protection. As a damn public service.
* [after catching Finn in an, um, compromising situation and calling her name]
“You didn’t wake me. I was working out.”
“Oh. Great!” Stop. Exclaiming.
He leaned against the island and crossed his arms. “You know FBI agents are trained to spot lies, right?”
She closed her eyes. Breathed.
“How much did you hear, Liv?”
Hear. Well, at least he didn’t think she’d seen him. She lifted her gaze to his and scrunched her nose. “Enough?”
“Fantastic,” he groused and moved toward the coffeepot to pour his own cup.
“Can we ignore that you heard anything?”
“Yep!” “Can you stop using the cheerleader voice?”
“Yep!”
He turned and gave her a sardonic look.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure why my voice is doing that.”
* [They are adorably cute as a couple]
His brows lifted. “Okay, so say asshole things instead?”
“Yes. That’d be better. Be an asshole.” She grabbed her camera, tucked it in her bag, and then slung the bag over her shoulder. “I know you’ve had a lot of practice at that.”
“I really don’t need to practice. That comes naturally. But fair warning, you might find that irresistibly hot, too.”
She groaned.
“What? I’m following instructions. That was an asshole thing to say.”
Loren, Roni. The Ones Who Got Away (p. 192). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
This whole series is *amazing*. I can’t imagine any other author being able to pull off the premise of this series — romances for the now-adult survivors of a high school shooting — but Roni Loren makes it work with crazy-insightful and intense emotions that feel true and honest and beautiful. Love!